A furious federal judge has lost patience with the Trump administration’s shifting stories about its plans to raze a beloved Washington park and has launched an investigation into whether officials lied to her.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes made the announcement after an extraordinary hearing in which government lawyers struggled to answer even the most basic questions about Donald Trump’s plans to remake East Potomac Park, including how much it would cost taxpayers.
At one point, the Biden appointee even pulled out a dictionary to read the definition of “involved” after the administration struggled to explain if Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was involved in the project.
“What do you mean by ‘involved’?” the lawyer had asked her.
East Potomac Park is a 106-year-old public recreational area that Trump has now made the subject of the president’s latest vanity plan: to turn the site into a championship-level golf course.
But tensions escalated earlier this month after the administration cut down 400 trees at the park without adequate notice, undermining a judge’s orders.
This led Reyes to issue a scathing ruling that no additional trees be removed from the park or that any other major alterations be made.
“Rarely, if ever, has the United States Department of Justice urged a federal court not to believe the sitting President,” Reyes wrote.
“And yet, here we are.”
Reyes told the court on Friday that she would name a special master to review potential misconduct by the administration—and if the Justice Department objected to her choice, she would run the inquiry herself.
She also demanded to know how much the entire renovation would cost.
The government’s lawyers claimed there was no estimate, but did let it slip that a new seawall alone could cost between $150 million and $400 million.
That jaw-dropping price tag could prove sensitive for Trump on the eve of an election where affordability is a central issue.
At one point, Reyes also asked a Justice Department lawyer whether he wanted to correct any false statements of material fact.
When the lawyer replied “not to my knowledge,” a somewhat incredulous judge shot back: “What does ‘not to my knowledge’ mean?”
At another point, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward inadvertently included tree cutting in a description of preparations for the closure, despite the administration’s insistence that the mass felling of trees earlier this month was unrelated to the renovation.
“News flash,” a frustrated Reyes hit back.
Located about two miles from the White House, East Potomac Park is a popular destination for golfers, runners, cyclists, walkers and birdwatchers, offering relatively affordable public recreation in the heart of the nation’s capital.
The D.C. Preservation League and local golfers sued earlier this year to stop the administration’s plans.
The hearing on Friday came after weeks of contradictory accounts from an administration that has repeatedly appeared reluctant to acknowledge the scale of Trump’s plans.
On Oct. 18, Trump announced on social media plans to close the golf course for 15 months, starting Nov. 15, and redevelop the 106-year-old park and course.
But as Reyes pointed out on Friday, Justice Department lawyers “swore up and down” the next day that there was no plan to close it on that date.
Despite the tensions, the president seems determined to go ahead with his plan, writing on Truth Social earlier this week that he would hold Reyes “fully responsible for anybody who is hurt, or killed, on this very dangerous, dilapidated, and unsightly Golf Course.”
He said the “judge has absolutely no right to hold up this very important and beautiful Project.”
“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,” Trump wrote.
