WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s plan to close East Potomac Park on Saturday and rebuild its century-old public golf course as a championship venue goes before U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes again Friday morning, at an in-person hearing where the judge has also said she will take up her plan to name former U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu as a special master to examine the conduct of government lawyers in the case.
The administration has said the project is a lawful improvement of federal parkland. In a court filing in late October, the Justice Department said the National Park Service would submit to the National Capital Planning Commission a rendering by golf architect Tom Fazio for a “World Class, championship-level golf course that is capable of hosting major events,” and would then close East Potomac Park on Nov. 15, according to the Associated Press. The closure is “consistent with the President’s directive,” the government wrote, The Independent reported.
President Donald Trump has said the Interior Department has “an absolute right” to “take a terrible and very unsafe golf course, and make it into a great, safe, and prestigious golf course.” In earlier briefs, government lawyers said the course had to close because it no longer had an operator and because of “safety hazards associated with the surrounding seawall,” and that a redesign was “progressing through the compliance process,” Golf Channel reported. The administration has also argued that tree removals at the course in October were routine maintenance.
The hearing is set for 10 a.m. at the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse. In a Nov. 3 minute order, Reyes scheduled it to hear any motion tied to the Park Service’s planning submission, said no fact witnesses would be called and ordered Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, the Justice Department’s third-ranking official, to attend in person, the docket shows. The plaintiffs, the DC Preservation League and two golfers, filed a motion Nov. 5 seeking to block the closure.
What the judge wants to hear
A Nov. 11 order lists three topics: new events since the last hearing, including what the order calls the new “NLT Lease,” a reference to National Links Trust, the nonprofit that has operated the course, an anticipated seawall repair and the project’s submissions to the planning commission and the Commission of Fine Arts; the plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits; and whether the relief they seek reaches only the golf course or the whole of East Potomac Park.
Reyes ordered government counsel to be ready to explain what work at the seawall requires closing the entire park, when that work will happen, and whether any material work at the seawall or on the course is scheduled to begin before the project’s review under the National Environmental Policy Act is finished. The hearing is open to the public by telephone.
The proposed special master
Friday at 10 a.m. was also the deadline Reyes set in a Nov. 7 minute order for the parties to respond in writing to her stated intent to appoint Liu, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 53, to investigate “whether Department of Justice or Department of the Interior counsel have committed ethical violations” in the case through Oct. 31, Politico reported. The order makes no finding of misconduct, says any government response will not waive an argument that the court should not conduct an ethics inquiry at all, and asks for views on having the government pay for the work, JURIST reported.
Liu was U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia from 2017 to 2020, during Trump’s first term, and earlier served as an assistant U.S. attorney in that office and in senior Justice Department posts. She is a partner at Liu Shur Kravis LLP. “If the Court appoints Ms. Liu, it will enter a detailed order doing so,” Reyes wrote.
The judge first announced an inquiry at an Oct. 30 hearing, after Trump wrote on social media that the course would close “as scheduled on November 15th.” At an Oct. 19 hearing, Woodward had told the court that “there is no plan to close the course” on that date. The Justice Department later filed notice that the plans and the Nov. 15 date were accurate. Our earlier coverage of the inquiry and of the injunction has more on that history.
Injunction stays in place
Reyes’ Oct. 26 preliminary injunction bars the Interior Department and the Park Service from cutting or damaging trees in East Potomac Park without a court order and requires at least 10 business days’ written notice before any closure of the course or irreversible change to the park. The government has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. On Nov. 9, Reyes refused to pause the injunction during the appeal, writing that the government’s planning documents tied the tree removals to the redesign, The Washington Post reported.
On Thursday, the government asked to keep under seal the names of Interior employees who worked on the planning submission, citing “outrage and death threats” in a highly publicized case. Reyes ordered the list made public by 5 p.m., finding “little possibility of prejudice from the disclosure of the names of government employees acting within the scope of their employment.” The government complied while objecting that the order was “an unconstitutional infringement on the Executive Branch’s right to conduct its own affairs,” The Independent reported.
The lawsuit, DC Preservation League v. Department of the Interior, No. 1:26-cv-00477, was filed in February. Reyes was appointed by President Joe Biden.
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