Judge likely to extend block on golf course tree clearing in a clash over Trump’s redesign

DOJ tells judge golf course won't close, despite Trumps's insistence, after are trees cut down 03:48 Get more news on Share Add NBC News to Google Oct. 19, 2026, 8:12 PM EDT By Justin Goldman , Gary Grumbach and Dareh Gregorian WASHINGTON — The judge presiding over a court fight involving President Donald Trump’s plans to redo a golf course on federal land indicated Monday that she plans to extend her order blocking the administration from chopping down more trees at the site.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said at the seven-hour hearing that she believes it’s likely necessary to extend her order because she has already found the government acted in “bad faith” when it abruptly chopped down over 400 trees at the course over the Columbus Day holiday weekend.

She said she didn’t buy the administration’s arguments that the tree clearing was unrelated to Trump’s renovation plan, which he said should begin “immediately.”

“I mean, there is no universe in which all of this just coincidentally happened at the same time. There just isn’t,” she said.

Lawyers for the Justice Department had argued there was no renovation plan in place — a stance that Trump undermined Sunday on social media when he said he was “pleased to announce” the Interior Department and “famed Golf Course Architect, Tom Fazio, has developed a plan to build a World Class Championship Golf Course on the site of the current East Potomac Golf Links, located in Washington, D.C.”

Trump, an avid golfer, said the renovation would begin “on November 15th, when the old Course will be closed to play.”

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