A federal judge rejected the Justice Department’s bid to remove her from the East Potomac Golf Links case, then opened Monday’s hearing with pointed questions about the removal of hundreds of trees from the Washington park. The fight now pits a public construction timetable against the administration’s claim that its renovation plan is still preliminary.
In a 13-page opinion issued Sunday night, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes dismissed the government’s request that she step aside, calling its argument based on selected quotes rather than the full record. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward had accused Reyes of bias after she rebuked government lawyers for giving little notice before tree-cutting began over a holiday weekend.
At Monday’s hearing, Reyes spent the first 15 minutes criticizing the administration’s handling of the work, The Associated Press reported. The Park Service had notified the court shortly before 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9, that crews would begin cutting trees the next morning. Reyes’s current order bars further tree removal through Oct. 26 and requires three business days’ notice before irreversible changes to the course. It does not decide whether the full redesign is lawful.
The timing sharpened the dispute: on Sunday, President Donald Trump said the course would close starting Nov. 15 for about 15 months while it is remade as a championship venue. Yet government lawyer Woodward told the court that the proposal remains nonfinal and cannot yet be challenged under administrative law.
The February lawsuit by the DC Preservation League and two golfers alleges the federal government is bypassing environmental and historic-preservation requirements at the 106-year-old public course. The plaintiffs also warn that a high-end redesign could change public access. The administration disputes that the proposal is final or that the plaintiffs have shown legally actionable harm. Reyes’s recusal decision keeps her overseeing the case; neither it nor the temporary tree-cutting order settles the underlying claims.