In Washington, a Golf Course Became a Test of Credibility

There is a particular kind of impatience that settles over a project when the person at the top wants something done now—not next month, not after the reviews, but immediately. In Washington this week, that impatience has found itself under the scrutiny of a federal judge, and the record she has written is not flattering. The trees at East Potomac Golf Links were not merely trimmed. They were raced to the ground, and the judge wants to know why.

U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes issued a sharply worded opinion Tuesday night, concluding that the Trump administration rushed to remove hundreds of trees from the historic golf course not because of any sudden commitment to a years-old preservation plan, but because President Trump wanted quick action on his vision to transform the public course into a championship venue . The ruling came after an emergency hearing Monday in which Reyes expressed fury that the government had failed to notify the court before workers began cutting down approximately 430 trees over the weekend .

The judge’s opinion was unsparing. “Breakneck speed to clear trees that posed no harm,” she wrote. “The reason? Disputed. The budget? Unclear. The environmental impact? Unstudied. The urgency? None” . She cited Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax—the story of a creature who “speaks for the trees”—and noted that the administration had done “precisely” what preservationists feared, moving from removing dead or hazardous trees to cutting down hundreds of healthy, non-invasive ones .

The government had previously assured the court that it would not take irreversible action without completing environmental reviews required under the National Environmental Policy Act . But late Friday afternoon, the National Park Service announced plans to begin clearing trees. By Saturday, tractors and heavy equipment had torn down hundreds . Kevin Griess, superintendent of National Mall and Memorial Parks, testified Monday that the tree removal was part of a 2019 plan predating Trump’s ambitions for the course . But when Judge Reyes asked whether there was any urgency to continue the work, Griess said, “not that I’m aware of” .

The administration had asked the judge in early October to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing the project remained “at an early and conceptual stage” . Yet the speed of the tree removal suggested otherwise. “It is a coincidence, the Government seems to suggest, that [the Department of Interior] cut down hundreds of trees at the Course weeks after the President asked [the agency] to cut down trees at the Course, and not, say, any other time in the last seven years,” Reyes wrote. “That asks rather a lot of coincidence” .

The D.C. Preservation League, which filed the lawsuit seeking to halt the administration’s plans, said in a statement that the government’s short notice “fails to honor previous commitments of timely communication made to the court and the plaintiffs” . Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff, responded on social media by dismissing the ruling: “I missed the part of the Constitutional Convention that put federal judges in charge of golf course maintenance” .

Judge Reyes has halted further tree removal until she can hear additional testimony. She said the government’s conduct has “cost the government all of its credibility with me in this case” . The trees, once cut, cannot be replaced. The question now is whether the court can prevent more from falling.

The images accompanying this article are AI-generated and intended for illustrative purposes only.

Sources: The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Virginia Lawyers Weekly