A federal judge on Monday barred the Trump administration from removing trees from East Potomac Golf Links in Washington, D.C., in a colorful ruling that follows a weekslong controversy over President Trump’s plans to overhaul the publicly owned course.
“The Court earlier stated, ‘I am not the Lorax. I do not speak for the trees,'” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes wrote. “The Court still does not speak for the trees. It speaks only for the rule of law.”
In a 70-page preliminary injunction ruling, Reyes prohibited the government from “removing or damaging” any trees on the golf course while a lawsuit challenging the renovation plan works its way through the court system. The judge also required 10 days’ notice before the government makes “any irreparable modification” to the course.
The judge had previously blocked tree removal through Monday.
Mr. Trump has sought to overhaul the golf course — which sits beside the Potomac River — for months, pitching a “World Class Championship Golf Course” fit to host high-profile professional tournaments instead of the current “dysfunctional” course. The D.C. Preservation League sued over the planned changes to the course, arguing the government violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to analyze the project’s impacts.
Reyes has sparred with the government since it cut down hundreds of trees earlier this month with little notice to the court or plaintiffs. In a hearing two weeks ago, after more than 430 trees were felled, the judge told lawyers for the government that they had “lost credibility,” and she was “furious” and “thoroughly unamused.”
Mr. Trump said last week the course would close for construction beginning in November, and it would reopen in 15 months. He later said work would begin “IMMEDIATELY.”
In her ruling Monday, Reyes argued Mr. Trump’s statements about the renovation plans were tough to square with government lawyers’ position that it’s legally too early to challenge the plans in court because there was no final decision.
“Rarely, if ever, has the United States Department of Justice urged a federal court not to believe the sitting President,” she wrote. “This started as a case about golf. That good walk spoiled. But it has become much more. It now forces the Court to reconcile assertions by President Donald J. Trump with the sworn testimony of multiple government employees and the argument of senior Department of Justice attorneys.”
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein 
Reyes said she was initially reluctant to intervene in the case, writing that she “would much prefer not to have to resolve Lorax v. Once‑ler redux” — a reference to an earlier court hearing in which Reyes invoked the Dr. Seuss character to explain why she wasn’t interested in micromanaging the federal government’s tree management efforts.
She said she only intervened “because the Government did what it assured all it would not do,” by chopping down hundreds of trees on the golf course.
Reyes found that the D.C. Preservation League is likely to succeed in showing the Trump administration’s plans for the golf course violate the legal requirement for an environmental review.
She also found that the tree removals were part of Mr. Trump’s renovation plan, rejecting the government’s argument that they were part of an unrelated maintenance effort.
The judge said she did not find statements by the Department of Interior’s deputy chief of staff to be credible, including his description of the agency’s tree management plan as “cleaning up” the course.
CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department and the Department of Interior for comment.
Mr. Trump has feuded with Reyes, calling her a “crazed lunatic.”
Earlier this month, the Trump administration asked Reyes to recuse herself from the case, arguing that she had shown “open hostility” to the government and that her “histrionics in prior hearings have clearly demonstrated she is no longer impartial.”
“To name just a few examples of bias, Judge Reyes has unfairly questioned Trump Administration attorneys’ intelligence, allowed her disdain for the Trump Administration to influence how hearings unfold, and systematically disregarded basic separation of powers principles and Article III constraints on judicial authority,” government attorneys wrote.
Reyes rejected that request and denied that she is biased, listing out compliments that she has paid government lawyers.
“So what happened? Not sudden onset bias,” Reyes wrote in her denial. “Instead, the Government decided to remove over 500 healthy, non-invasive trees from East Potomac Golf Course. It waited until 4:55 p.m. on the Friday of a holiday weekend to give notice that it would begin removing trees within 15 hours. It removed nearly 430 trees in one day and would have destroyed hundreds more but for a rain delay.”
