A federal judge ordered the Interior Department on Monday to temporarily stop cutting down trees at the East Potomac Golf Course and explain why it cut down hundreds of trees over the weekend.
Judge Ana C. Reyes said she was “thoroughly unamused” that officials gave notice at 4:55 p.m. Friday — minutes before courts closed for the holiday weekend — that the National Park Service would begin razing trees the next day.
“I do not know how I could have made it any plainer I did not want what happened to happen,” she said, adding that the incident had “cost the government all of its credibility” in the case.
The D.C. Preservation League filed an emergency motion Sunday asking the judge to stop the tree removal, saying the Trump administration felled hundreds of trees, including healthy mature oaks and maples. The group is involved in a legal action against President Donald Trump’s plan to build a new golf course at East Potomac.
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The judge had previously told the government that it needed to notify the court before taking irreversible action on renovation and construction.
The Trump administration told the group’s lawyers over the weekend that the operation was proceeding faster than anticipated, and that 529 trees had been destroyed Saturday and hundreds more would be cut down imminently, the D.C. Preservation League filing states.
On Monday, lawyers for the government said approximately 430 trees have been cut down so far, and there are plans to cut around 299 more.
Kevin Griess, the superintendent of National Mall and Memorial Parks, told the court in a declaration filed Friday that the trees do not contribute to the historic landscape and were being removed as part of an older rehabilitation project.
“No healthy trees that are contributing to the historical golf course (such as healthy, historic cherry trees) will be removed as part of this project,” Griess said.
But the preservation group said the “clear-cutting that is happening now,” after Trump said work on a new golf course would move quickly, “cannot be understood as anything other than a major, irretrievable further step toward implementation of the Washington National plan.”
“These excuses can no longer be swallowed,” the group’s filing says.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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