A Biden-appointed federal judge blocked further tree removal at a D.C. public golf course through Oct. 26 after the Trump administration cleared hundreds of trees over a holiday weekend.
NBC News reported that U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued the temporary order Tuesday, barring the administration from felling any more trees at East Potomac Golf Course in Washington. The pause followed an emergency hearing the day before and runs through Monday, October 26.
National Mall and Memorial Parks Superintendent Kevin Griess testified that crews started Saturday morning and knocked down 430 trees. Bad weather stopped work Sunday. Workers had already marked about 300 more trees for cutting.
Justice Department attorneys had filed papers Friday shortly before 5 p.m. stating the National Park Service planned to remove roughly 500 trees across the three-day holiday weekend. The course is a century-old public facility the Trump administration wants to upgrade into championship-style greens.
At Monday’s emergency hearing, Reyes unloaded on government lawyers. She said she had rejected earlier warnings from the plaintiffs’ side and had trusted the administration’s word.
"I was hearing from everyone on plaintiffs’ side this was going to happen. I said repeatedly, ‘No, I trust the government.’ I trusted you all not to do precisely what you have done."
She added a sharper verdict on the weekend work.
"What has happened has cost the government all of its credibility."
The order itself is plain. “The Court ORDERS that Defendants may not fell any further trees on the East Potomac Golf Course through Monday, October 26,” Reyes wrote. She directed National Park Service acting Director Jessica Bowron to appear and delayed a follow-up hearing with a top Interior Department official until the same Monday the tree bar expires.
Cases involving Biden-appointed judges and Trump administration priorities have become a steady feature of the federal docket, and this fight fits the pattern.
Earlier this year, Reyes denied the plaintiffs’ request for a restraining order after administration lawyers assured the court it would get ample notice of any large-scale work. Last month she drew a line on her role in the tree dispute.
"I am not the Lorax. I do not speak for the trees. I am a judge."
The administration told the court the cutting was “maintenance activities” unrelated to President Trump’s renovation plans. Officials said the National Park Service was carrying out recommendations from a 2019 Cultural Landscape Report meant to bring the course closer to its original design.
Plaintiffs, the D.C. Preservation League and two Washington residents, rejected that account in court papers. They argued the sudden scale of the operation could not be separated from the broader redesign.
"Defendants would have this Court believe that this unprecedented operation is merely the sudden and purely coincidental fulfillment of recommendations posited in a Cultural Landscape Report seven years ago and is totally unrelated to the ongoing implementation of the Washington National plan."
They pressed the point further: “Even if Defendants were entitled to the benefit of the doubt, they are not entitled to a suspension of disbelief.”
Federal courtroom clashes over Trump-era personnel and process have also surfaced elsewhere, including when the DOJ removed a court-appointed U.S. attorney in Seattle shortly after judges swore him in.
The October fight did not arrive without warning. In a May hearing covered by the New York Post, Reyes rejected an emergency temporary restraining order from opponents while allowing basic maintenance and keeping the course open. She demanded advance notice before major construction or any tree removal exceeding 10 trees and warned of “serious consequences” if the government acted first and sought forgiveness later. Administration attorneys said then that no final redesign decisions existed and that only repairs and cleanup were planned.
Trump has kept a high tempo on legal and political fronts this cycle, from petitioning the Supreme Court to reopen a dismissed 2016 campaign lawsuit to outreach across party lines.
Breitbart reported that 529 trees came down after the government notified the court on October 9 that work would proceed, and that Reyes, appointed by Joe Biden, ordered the removal halted while warning that any violation of her stop order, even by seconds, could trigger contempt proceedings. In that account she told officials they had not done their best and had done their “absolute worst.”
Just The News described an initial 24-hour halt after a tense three-hour hearing in which Reyes accused the government of deceiving her over the holiday weekend, with the pause framed as potentially extendable and tied to Trump’s direction that the National Park Service cut more than 500 trees at the historic public course.
The Washington Examiner reported the extended block through Oct. 26 after the weekend clearances and the emergency filing by the D.C. Preservation League, again noting Reyes’s line that the removals had cost the government all of its credibility in the lawsuit.
Separate Trump legal efforts, including moves to revive a dismissed Clinton-related case, show how often these disputes now land in federal court.
The temporary bar does not decide the renovation itself. It freezes further felling while the parties return Monday, October 26, with Bowron ordered to appear and the Interior Department still facing questions about how the cutting decision came together. Griess’s testimony already put 430 trees down and roughly 300 more marked. The Friday DOJ notice put the weekend target near 500. The administration still maintains the work tracks a 2019 park service landscape report. Plaintiffs still call that story a coincidence too far.
Public courses need upkeep. Century-old layouts need honest maintenance. When a single district judge can freeze that work after notice was filed, after prior assurances were given, and after basic repairs were already green-lit, voters get a clear look at who holds the real veto over ordinary government action in the capital.