Updated

Updated · The Washington Post · Oct 20

Trump Calls Judge Reyes a 'Crazed Lunatic' as 400-Plus Trees Fuel Golf Course Clash

Updated

Updated · The Washington Post · Oct 20

Trump Calls Judge Reyes a 'Crazed Lunatic' as 400-Plus Trees Fuel Golf Course Clash

Q: Why were hundreds of trees removed at a historic golf course before the judge could review the legality of the championship overhaul?

Hundreds of trees were removed before the judge could review the project because the government moved quickly under a separate stated rationale: officials said the cutting was part of an older National Park Service landscape-restoration and safety effort, not the new championship-course overhaul that is being challenged in court. That distinction mattered legally. The Justice Department argued the broader redevelopment was still only a proposal, with no final agency action yet for a court to review, while the tree work was tied to a 2019 cultural landscape report calling for the removal of dead, dying, hazardous, or historically inconsistent trees. Interior and Park Service officials testified that they were trying to “clean up the course” and carry out that plan rapidly. Judge Ana Reyes, however, questioned whether that explanation was credible. She had previously required advance notice before major or irreversible changes, and the court learned that notice came only shortly before crews began weekend work. By then, roughly 430 to 500 trees had already been cut or marked for removal, with some estimates running higher. So the immediate reason the trees came down before judicial review was timing and the administration’s decision to treat the work as separate from the contested redesign. The central dispute now is whether that was a genuine restoration project or a way of advancing the golf-course overhaul before the court could rule on its legality.

3 articles · Updated · The Washington Post · Oct 20

Trump on Monday attacked U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes in a social media post after she questioned the administration’s credibility and temporarily halted more tree removal at East Potomac Golf Links.
More than 400 trees were cut this month during the disputed redesign of the public D.C. course, intensifying a case over whether officials complied with environmental and historic-preservation laws.
The Justice Department last week sought Reyes’s recusal, accusing her of “open hostility” and “deep-seated” antipathy toward the administration; Reyes denied that request and noted she had initially sided with the government.
Reyes, a Biden appointee confirmed in 2023, has repeatedly ruled against Trump policies but also gave the maximum 5-year sentence to the contractor who leaked Trump’s tax returns.