A federal judge on Monday barred the Trump administration from removing trees from the East Potomac Golf Course in Washington, D.C., in a colorful ruling that followed a week of controversy surrounding President Trump’s plan to spruce up the publicly owned course.
“The court earlier said, ‘I am not a Lorax. I do not speak for the trees,'” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes wrote. “The court still doesn’t speak for the trees. It speaks for the rule of law.”
In a 70-page preliminary injunction ruling, Reyes barred the government from “removing or damaging” any trees on the golf course while litigation over the renovation plan moves through the court system. The judge also ordered the government to give 10 days’ notice before making “any irreversible changes” to the stadium.
The judge had previously No tree felling until Monday.
For months, Trump has sought to overhaul the Potomac River golf course to create a “world-class championship golf course” suitable for hosting high-profile professional tournaments, rather than the “dysfunctional” course it currently is. The D.C. Conservation League filed a lawsuit challenging the planned course changes, arguing the administration violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to analyze the project’s impacts.
Reyes has since been at loggerheads with the government Cutting down hundreds of trees There was little notice to the court or the plaintiffs earlier this month. At a hearing two weeks ago, the judge told government lawyers they had “lost credibility” and she was “angry” and “completely unhappy” after more than 430 trees were felled.
Mr Trump said last week The course will be closed for construction starting in November and will reopen 15 months later. He later said work would begin “immediately.”
Reyes argued in Monday’s ruling that Trump’s statements about the renovation plans are difficult to reconcile with government lawyers’ position that challenging them in court is legally premature because no final decision has been made.
“The Justice Department rarely urges federal courts not to believe a sitting president,” she wrote. “This case started out as a golf case. That nice walk was ruined. But it has become something much more important. It now forces the court to reconcile President Donald J. Trump’s claims with the sworn testimony of multiple government employees and the arguments of senior Justice Department attorneys.”
Reyes said she was initially reluctant to intervene in the case, writing that she “preferred not to have to resolve Lorax v. Once-ler Redux” — referring to an earlier court hearing in which Reyes invoked the Dr. Seuss character to explain why she was not interested in micromanaging the federal government’s tree management efforts.
She said she only intervened “because the government did what it promised not to do” by cutting down hundreds of trees on the golf course.
Reyes found that the D.C. Conservation Alliance is likely to succeed in proving that the Trump administration’s golf course plan violates legal requirements for environmental review.
She also discovered that tree felling was part of the renovation plan.
The judge said she found statements by the Interior Department’s deputy chief of staff not credible, including his description of the agency’s tree management program as “cleaning up” the course.
CBS News has reached out to the Justice and Interior departments for comment.
Mr Trump has feuded with Ms Reyes, calling her a “crazy lunatic”.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration asked Reyes to recuse herself from the case, saying she had shown “open hostility” toward the administration and that her “performative conduct in previous hearings clearly demonstrated that she was no longer impartial.”
“To name just a few examples of bias, Judge Reyes unfairly questioned the intelligence of Trump Administration lawyers, allowed her disdain for the Trump Administration to color the conduct of hearings, and systematically ignored basic separation of powers principles and Article III limits on judicial power,” government lawyers wrote.
Reyes rejected the request, denying bias and listing her praise for government lawyers.
“So what happened? It wasn’t sudden bias,” Reyes wrote in his denial. “Instead, the administration decided to remove more than 500 healthy, non-invasive trees from the East Potomac Golf Course. Notification was given until 4:55 p.m. on the Friday of the holiday weekend that tree removal would begin within 15 hours. Nearly 430 trees were removed in one day, and hundreds more would have been destroyed had it not rained.”