WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge is launching a formal inquiry into potential misconduct by Trump administration officials in the lawsuit over East Potomac Park, including whether they repeatedly misrepresented the president's plans for the municipal D.C. golf course. District Judge Ana Reyes ordered Friday's hearing — the third in as many weeks — to seek clarity from government lawyers days after they acknowledged in writing Wednesday that there is a plan to transform the municipal golf course into a championship-level venue, closing it and much of the surrounding park in mid-November. For months, Justice Department attorneys representing the Interior Department and National Park Service had maintained in court filings and hearings that such a plan was not yet final, despite President Trump's social media statements proclaiming otherwise.
Their abrupt confirmation on Wednesday night prompted Reyes to call both sides back into court, just days after she ordered a halt to tree-clearing and major renovations at the park (which the government promptly appealed). Reyes opened Friday's hearing by quoting the D.C. Bar Rule of Professional Conduct 3.3, which prohibits lawyers from knowingly making or failing to correct false statements to the court.
She asked Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr., who is leading the government's defense, whether there was anything he would like to correct. "Not to my knowledge," Woodward said, explaining that he hasn't read every transcript in the case. "We have lots of binders," he said, to which Reyes replied: "I bet you do." Over the next four hours, Reyes grilled Woodward about the timing and status of the administration's renovation plans.
She demanded to know whether officials had not been truthful when they told her last Monday that they were not aware of the park closure that Trump had posted about that same morning. Reyes called the lawyers' claims into doubt for two main reasons. Government lawyers acknowledged for the first time in their Wednesday filing that the administration is closing the park next month, both for golf course renovations and to address the man-made peninsula's crumbling seawall.
And they said in court that they submitted those renovation plans to the National Capital Planning Commission for review on Friday. Under questioning, Woodward told the judge that the submission had been in the works for several weeks. But, as Reyes fired back incredulously, no one from the government mentioned that in the previous hearings, one of which lasted seven hours.
"Am I to understand that for weeks someone has been putting pen to paper on a submission to design the golf course … while this litigation was ongoing, while Department of Justice employees were representing to me that there was no plan?" she said. The hearing ended with Reyes announcing that she would "open a formal inquiry into whether agency officials and employees, including agency attorneys and [Justice Department] attorneys, have made misrepresentations to the court and otherwise violated applicable ethical rules." Reyes said that inquiry may be led by a special master, whom she has not yet appointed but described as a judicial officer with "full investigatory powers." Reyes said if the government rejects her special master, she will conduct the inquiry herself. Reyes stressed that the opening of an investigation does not mean that the court has found or will find evidence that any government lawyers have violated their professional obligations.
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