Biden Judge Blocks More Tree Cutting for Trump's D.C. Golf Course Rebuild. Trump: She Has 'No Expertise in Golf'

A federal judge in Washington has ordered President Trump's Interior Department to stop cutting trees at East Potomac Golf Links, a public course on the Potomac River with a clear view of the Washington Monument. She also ordered the government to give 10 business days' written notice, about two weeks, before making any lasting change to the park.

Trump wants to tear out the aging course and build a championship layout that could host the U.S. Open. The judge, Ana Reyes, was appointed by President Biden in 2023. Her order came Monday. By that night Trump had answered: the course still closes Nov. 15, and the administration is going to the appeals court.

What the judge ordered

Reyes granted a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by the D.C. Preservation League and two golfers who play the course. Her 70-page opinion bars the government from "removing or damaging additional trees" on the course while the case goes on, and requires the advance notice before any "irreparable modification" to East Potomac Park.

Her legal hook is the National Environmental Policy Act, the 1970 law that requires environmental reviews for big federal projects. Reyes found the Interior Department likely broke it by splitting one plan into smaller pieces, such as a tree plan, so no single piece triggered a full review.

She also ordered the government to explain by 10 a.m. Wednesday why she shouldn't make it, "including relevant DOJ attorneys and staff," preserve records about the plan and the timing of the tree work.

Trump's own posts became her evidence

The opinion's first line sets the tone. "Rarely, if ever, has the United States Department of Justice urged a federal court not to believe the sitting President," Reyes wrote.

Here's the knot she was untying. The plaintiffs needed a final plan to sue over. Justice Department lawyers argued there wasn't one yet, only proposals moving through the normal steps. Trump, meanwhile, had posted that the Fazio design was set and that work would begin "IMMEDIATELY!" When Reyes pressed a deputy assistant attorney general on how both could be true, the lawyer answered, "the President is not an agency."

Reyes sided with the posts. "If, as DOJ insists, President Trump is wrong, Secretary Burgum can just say so," she wrote. "He has not." In other words, the President announcing his own project out loud became the proof that let a judge step in to stop it.

She knew how it would land. Earlier in the case she had told the lawyers, "I am not the Lorax. I do not speak for the trees." She closed Monday's opinion with the same line, adding: "It speaks only for the rule of law."

The trees

What set her off was Oct. 10. That day Park Service crews removed nearly 430 trees, work agency employees described as "cleaning up the course," according to the opinion. The government had been clearing dead, dying and invasive trees since May. Reyes found many of these were healthy, and said the court and the plaintiffs got no real notice. Over the prior months she had turned down the plaintiffs' requests for relief about a dozen times.

Trump's side has argued from the start that a judge has no business running a golf course. "I missed the part of the Constitutional Convention that put federal judges in charge of golf course maintenance," White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted after an earlier hearing. "The Left is endlessly enraged that, after allowing DC to decay for decades, the Trump Administration is making it safe, clean and beautiful."

Miller also pointed out that the course sits on federal land the Park Service owns and runs. For the government, it's like needing a judge's sign-off before you fix up your own backyard.

The course Trump wants to replace

The opinion itself shows how long the place drifted. In December 2025 the Park Service ended the lease of the nonprofit that ran the course, the National Links Trust, because it hadn't made the "initial improvements" its lease required. Court records describe "significantly concerning" and "critical safety" issues with the course's buildings.

Trump made the case in his own words after touring the site in June, calling it "dilapidated, worn out, and very dangerous." In his post Monday night, he said the old course was so cramped that "the narrow and nondescript fairways are far too close together, leading to a constant barrage of people being hit with wayward shots, and the echoing throughout the air of the word, 'FORE!'"

His plan replaces the three existing courses with one 18-hole layout by architect Tom Fazio. Trump says it will stay open to the public, "at a reduced rate for those living in Washington, D.C.," and will be able to host "The U.S. Open, The PGA Championship, The Ryder Cup, and The Presidents Cup."

Trump: 'We will immediately appeal'

Trump called the notice requirement unconstitutional. The judge, he wrote, "does not have the Constitutional Right to 'ask for or receive notices,' which are time-consuming, unnecessary, expensive, and unconstitutional."

"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. "The judge has absolutely no right to hold up this very important and beautiful Project."

What's next

Three dates matter now. The government's answer on preserving records is due Wednesday at 10 a.m. Trump says he is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit "for immediate remedy." And he says the old course closes as scheduled on Nov. 15. Even Reyes wrote that her ruling is "subject, as all such opinions should be, to appellate review."