Justice Department asks judge to step aside after sharp rebuke in DC golf course case

The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to remove herself from a lawsuit over the Trump administration's renovation of a public golf course in Washington, days after she accused government lawyers of defying her orders and lying to her court about the mass removal of trees on the site.

The recusal motion, filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is the latest turn in a nine-month legal fight over East Potomac Golf Links, a municipal course on National Park Service land that the administration wants to rebuild into a championship-caliber facility capable of hosting professional tournaments. It escalates a dispute that has moved beyond zoning and historic-preservation law into a direct challenge to a sitting judge's authority to police the executive branch.

A weekend of cutting, then a reckoning

U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes had told the government in May that it needed her approval before removing more than ten trees from the course. On the Friday of Columbus Day weekend, government lawyers notified the court at 4:55 p.m. that the National Park Service intended to remove "up to 529 trees" starting the next morning. Crews began cutting Saturday. By the time the D.C. Preservation League and two golfers who use the course sought an emergency restraining order on Sunday, government attorneys later acknowledged, at least 430 trees were already down.

Reyes called an emergency hearing Monday and, according to ABC News coverage of the session, did not hide her anger. She extended her prohibition on further tree removal through October 26, ordered three business days' notice before any other irreversible work at the site, and set a hearing for October 19 at which she intends to question Interior Department deputy chief of staff Gregory Wischer and acting National Park Service director Jessica Bowron directly.

"More than just being upset and furious right now, I am just beyond disappointed in the government," Reyes told government lawyers at the hearing, according to ABC News.

She also told the lawyers, "You did not do your best! You did your absolute worst!" and said the government's conduct had "cost the government all of its credibility with me in this case."

The case by the numbers

The dispute centers on a relatively small patch of federal parkland, but the figures involved have grown quickly. Roughly 529 trees were slated for removal in the October clearing operation alone, on top of earlier cutting over the summer. The broader renovation plan, as described in the National Park Service's own project description, also calls for depositing about 30,000 cubic yards of soil excavated from the White House East Wing demolition onto the golf course grounds as fill for the lessee's planned improvements. The lawsuit itself, DC Preservation League v. Department of the Interior, was filed February 13 and is docketed as No. 1:26-cv-00477 before Judge Reyes; by mid-July the case already had more than 60 entries on the docket, including the government's own account of the litigation's timeline in a filing responding to the court's questions about the project.

A yearlong fight over a public course

President Trump has pushed publicly for the renovation. In a June 28 social media post cited in that same court filing, he said the administration would "build one of the Greatest Golf Courses in the world" at the site by September 1 — a deadline that passed without the project being completed, a gap that critics say helps explain the administration's rush to clear trees before the midterm season advances further. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum toured the site in person, and conceptual renderings for the overhaul were produced by the golf course architecture firm Fazio Design, according to the same court record.

The Preservation League sued in February, arguing the project violated the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Park Service Organic Act by proceeding without the environmental and historic review those statutes require. Reyes twice declined to halt the renovation outright but imposed interim conditions, including the ten-tree notice threshold, after warning in open court that she expected those limits to be honored. The Interior Department has described the tree removals as "routine maintenance" tied to a 2019 cultural-landscape plan, saying the trees marked for cutting "do not contribute to the historic landscape." Preservationists dispute that characterization and say some of the felled trees, including cherry trees on the grounds, appeared healthy.

Reaction on both sides

The recusal motion argues that Reyes's handling of the case, including her demand for testimony from senior Interior and Park Service officials and remarks she has made in other litigation involving the administration, creates "an appearance of partiality" under the federal judicial disqualification statute, which requires a judge to step aside from any proceeding in which impartiality "might reasonably be questioned." Department lawyers separately argued, as first reported in detail, that Reyes exceeded her authority by compelling testimony from high-ranking executive branch officials, and asked that audio of Monday's hearing be released because a transcript cannot convey her tone.

Golfers who play the course have followed the fight closely. Alex Dickson, the golfer named as a plaintiff, told Washingtonian he learned of the weekend cutting from photos and videos readers sent him. Andrew Uhlman, another regular at the course who is not a party to the suit, described East Potomac to the magazine simply as "the people's course of DC." The government, for its part, maintains in court filings that the plaintiffs lack standing and that no final decision has been made on the scope of the renovation, even as crews have continued physical work at the site.

What happens next

Reyes ordered the plaintiffs to respond to the recusal motion by Sunday afternoon and has not said whether she will step aside. If she declines, the Justice Department could seek review from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a path that would delay resolution of the underlying preservation claims further. Monday's hearing, at which Reyes intends to question Wischer and Bowron under oath, is scheduled to go forward regardless, though the government has argued that compelling such testimony from senior officials is itself improper absent extraordinary circumstances. Tree removal remains barred through October 26, and no date has been set for a ruling on the preliminary injunction that would determine the project's fate while the lawsuit continues.