A federal judge temporarily barred the Interior Department on Monday from carrying out a variety of major alterations at East Potomac Park, finding that the government had been taking steps to initiate President Trump’s vision for championship level golf course on the property while passing off the work in court as routine maintenance. The ruling followed an extraordinary confrontation between the Justice Department and Judge Ana C. Reyes, who throughout October called several Trump administration officials and government lawyers to account for what she described as misrepresentations about the plan.
The clash put a spotlight on what had been one of the president’s less visible plans for transforming the capital, compared to his efforts to seize control of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, build a 250-foot triumphal arch at the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery and add a gilded ballroom to the White House. This, instead, was the overhaul of a municipal golf course and public park.
It culminated in a searing 70-page opinion issued on Monday, in which Judge Reyes wrote that much of what she had been told in court stood at odds with Mr. Trump’s public pronouncements about the golf course, which came even as officials were insisting that no long-term plan was settled. Not to believe him that the secretary’s agency will destroy a historic golf course already on the land.” A group that included two Washington residents and a preservationsociety who sued to block an overhaul of the existing site had asked the court to prevent the administration from cutting down more trees after 400 were felled in one morning earlier this month.
Judge Reyes granted the request and went further, barring other actions that could indirectly destroy trees, including staging heavy machinery. She went to great lengths to impart her instructions in detail, an apparent attempt to prevent the administration from citing confusion or ambiguity to act without her involvement. She required the government to notify the court at least 10 days before closing the course or making any “irreversible modification to any forms or features” to East Potomac Park, where the current course is, including changes to “the Park’s landforms, vegetation, course design, hydrology, pathways, and structures.” “This is a big win that will rightly protect East Potomac Park from further irreparable harm,” said Skye Perryman, the president of the nonprofit Democracy Forward, which is representing the group behind the lawsuit.
The dramatic changes that Mr. Trump has made to Washington loomed over the lawsuit from the beginning. Throughout early interactions with Justice Department attorneys on the case, Judge Reyes stressed that she wanted to avoid surprises, after the president acted without warning last year to to demolish the East Wing of the White House before courts could review the legality of the project.
At the same time, she said the lawsuit placed her in a difficult spot, because she did not view it as the role of federal courts to police minor decisions about management of federal lands. Trump had mused since last year about transforming plans for East Potomac Park, earlier this year, she repeatedly told the group behind the lawsuit that it was not yet clear that the federal government was actively implementing his vision, making court action premature. Hesitant to issue any order that would prevent rank-and-file government workers from carrying out everyday maintenance on the course, she prevailed on the Justice Department to provide early warning before workers started major work at the golf course.
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