A Biden-appointed federal judge extended her block on President Trump's renovation of the East Potomac Golf Links Monday, barring the administration from touching another tree on the course and mandating 10 business days' notice before any "irreparable modification" — another robe-wearing legislator using the bench to grind an executive project to a halt.
This is the administrative state's litigation warfare in its purest form: sue, find a sympathetic judge, get an injunction, and run out the clock. What started as a dispute over trees on a man-made peninsula has become a full-blown constitutional standoff over whether a sitting president can pursue his agenda without a federal judge micromanaging the timeline.
US District Judge Ana Reyes, a Joe Biden appointee, issued the 70-page order after finding the government acted in "bad faith" by abruptly chopping down more than 400 trees over the Columbus Day holiday weekend — after she had already ordered notice before cutting more than 10. That's the factual basis for the injunction, and the administration's holiday-weekend tree clearance gave her the ammunition.
But Reyes didn't stop at the trees. She used Trump's own Truth Social posts against him, noting they contradicted sworn testimony from government employees and arguments from DOJ attorneys. On Oct. 18, Trump posted that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had "developed a plan to build a World Class Championship Golf Course" starting Nov. 15 — even though Justice Department lawyers had told the court there was no renovation plan. The next day, Trump posted that work would begin "IMMEDIATELY!" and called Reyes "a crazed lunatic."
"Rarely, if ever, has the United States Department of Justice urged a federal court not to believe the sitting President," Reyes wrote. "And yet, here we are."
Trump fired back late Monday, calling the 10-day notice requirement "unconstitutional" and vowing an immediate appeal. "To have to give advanced notices to a judge who has no expertise in Golf, Architecture, Landscaping, Construction, or anything else having to do with building such a World Class Project, is not fair, appropriate, or Constitutional," he wrote on Truth Social.
The underlying project would transform the 36-hole course into a single 18-hole championship layout designed by noted architect Tom Fazio. Trump has declared the current course "extremely dangerous," with narrow fairways that lead to "a constant barrage of people being hit with wayward shots." The renovation would also eliminate a network of trails through the property used by runners, bikers, and the Marine Corps Marathon.
The DC Preservation League and other plaintiffs sued to stop the Fazio design. Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman, representing the plaintiffs, praised the ruling as a "big win" that would protect the park from "the Trump-Vance association's greed and lawlessness."
Reyes, for her part, insisted she wasn't overstepping. "The Court earlier stated, 'I am not the Lorax. I do not speak for the trees.' The Court still does not speak for the trees. It speaks only for the rule of law," she wrote.
The question now is whether the executive branch can be forced to seek judicial permission slips before modifying federal land it controls — and whether the courts have become the permanent veto pen for anyone who challenges the Washington consensus.
