A federal judge angrily tore into Justice Department lawyers Monday after hundreds of trees were removed from a historic Washington, D.C., golf course with little warning to the court.
U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, presided over a nearly four-hour emergency hearing involving East Potomac Golf Links.
The dispute centers on the National Park Service’s removal of roughly 430 trees from the federally managed course over the weekend.
Reyes had previously instructed the government to give advance notice before undertaking major work at the site, including large-scale tree removal.
Instead, notice was filed late Friday afternoon before work began the following morning.
Government attorneys acknowledged they had learned of the plan several days earlier.
That explanation did not satisfy Reyes.
The judge said the government had “lost credibility” with the court and repeatedly pressed attorneys on why they waited so long to notify the parties.
“I am just beyond disappointed in the government,” Reyes said during the hearing.
At one point, she sharply reacted after being told that 430 trees had already been removed.
“430 trees!” Reyes exclaimed.
She also questioned why the Justice Department believed the limited notice complied with her earlier instructions.
“On what universe did anyone in your office think that that was acceptable?” Reyes asked.
When a government attorney said officials had done their best to provide notice, Reyes rejected that explanation.
“You did not do your best,” she responded. “You did your absolute worst.”
The fight is tied to plans involving East Potomac Golf Links, a historic public golf course located on federal land.
President Donald Trump has publicly discussed turning the facility into a championship-level course.
The administration, however, says the weekend tree removals were part of a landscape-restoration plan dating back to 2019 and were separate from Trump’s proposed overhaul.
The D.C. Preservation League disputes that position.
The group has sued over plans affecting the course and argues that federal environmental and historic-preservation requirements have not been properly followed.
Reyes temporarily halted additional tree removal while demanding answers about who authorized the work and why it moved forward over the holiday weekend.
She also directed National Park Service officials to testify under oath about the timeline surrounding the operation.
The judge indicated that the government would need to provide several business days of notice before undertaking additional major work.
Reyes has clashed with the Trump administration before.
In a separate lawsuit challenging restrictions on transgender military service, she issued a preliminary injunction after finding the policy was likely unconstitutional.
Her conduct in that case also drew criticism from the Justice Department.
The department filed a judicial misconduct complaint accusing her of hostile and inappropriate treatment of government attorneys.
Monday’s hearing added another confrontation to that history.
Reyes made clear that her immediate concern was trust.
She said she had previously given government lawyers the benefit of the doubt and believed they would not move forward with irreversible work without meaningful notice.
Instead, hundreds of trees came down in a matter of hours.
The judge suggested that the timing raised serious questions about whether officials deliberately waited until the last possible moment to prevent opponents from seeking court intervention, per Trending Politics.
Government officials maintained that the work was based on an older National Park Service plan aimed at restoring the historic character of the course.
No final ruling has yet resolved the broader dispute over Trump’s renovation plans.
For now, the tree-cutting operation has been paused while Reyes demands sworn testimony and additional explanations from administration officials.
