Judge halts tree removal on DC golf course over Trump redevelopment plans

A federal judge in Washington has halted the clearing of trees on a public golf course that Donald Trump intends to rebuild into a championship venue, accusing government officials of rushing the operation and misleading the court.

US District Judge Ana Reyes issued a temporary restraining order early on Monday, barring the National Park Service from cutting down any more trees until at least Tuesday. She convened an emergency hearing on a federal court holiday with only hours of notice, saying the administration's overnight actions left her with no alternative.

At the hearing, two National Park Service officials testified remotely about the sudden operation. Frank Lands, deputy director for operations, said the tree-clearing plan came together over the previous week after he received directions from Greg Wischer, deputy chief of staff to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Lands defended the pace of the work, telling the court he was proud the agency moved quickly. Kevin Griess, superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, told the judge that crews had identified roughly 300 additional trees marked for removal.

Reyes ordered Wischer to appear in court on Tuesday after government lawyers said they could not locate him on Monday.

By the end of the session, Reyes said she felt the government had lied to her. Agency officials admitted the clearing operation was approved on 5 October. Yet the following day, an agency comptroller submitted a sworn declaration to the court stating that the park service had no intention of starting significant rehabilitation work until all legal compliance reviews were finished.

Opponents had sued earlier this year to stop preliminary work, pointing to White House plans to transform the century-old municipal course into a high-end complex. Trump had publicly confirmed his intentions on Truth Social in June, calling the existing layout worn out and dangerous, and promising swift construction. The plaintiffs had warned that the administration would bypass standard environmental and historical reviews, noting that debris from the demolition of the White House East Wing had previously been dumped on the greens as landfill.

Reyes had declined to issue an injunction earlier in the case, instructing the administration instead to provide ample advance warning before carrying out major alterations. The plaintiffs said they received notice of the weekend felling only 12 hours before chainsaws arrived, with the government labelling the work routine maintenance under a 2019 landscape study.

The plaintiffs rejected that claim in a weekend filing, arguing that the sudden removal of hundreds of trees was an obvious step toward clearing space for Trump's project rather than a routine preservation effort.

Reyes made clear during the hearing that she had not wanted to intervene in groundskeeping, but insisted federal agencies could not flout commitments made in court. The White House pushed back publicly, with adviser Stephen Miller questioning on social media why a federal judge was intervening in golf course maintenance.