The legal fight over President Trump’s plan to rebuild Washington’s East Potomac Golf Course just took a serious new turn.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes says she intends to appoint Jessie K. Liu — the former U.S. attorney for Washington appointed during President Trump’s first term — as a special master to investigate whether Justice Department or Interior Department lawyers committed ethical violations in the case.

No misconduct has been proven. But the move puts an outside investigator between the court and two major federal departments, with the government ordered to respond by Friday, November 13.

The court’s new minute order identifies Liu by name and gives both sides a chance to object before the appointment becomes final:

The Associated Press reports that Liu would examine the conduct of federal lawyers in the lawsuit brought by the DC Preservation League and two golfers. The administration plans to close the course and park on November 15 for a 15-month rebuild aimed at producing a championship-level venue capable of hosting major events.

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The dispute now turns on what federal officials told the court, when they knew the renovation plan was moving forward, and whether those statements matched the actions being taken on the ground.

Reyes, a Biden appointee, announced an ethics inquiry on October 30 after weeks of increasingly tense proceedings. She has not found that any government lawyer lied or broke a professional rule.

Liu’s job, if the appointment goes through, would be to investigate the record and help the court separate accusation from fact.

That is what makes the proposed choice politically striking: Liu was nominated by President Trump and confirmed as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia in 2017.

The court’s October 26 memorandum opinion shows why the fight reached this point. Reyes wrote that the court had repeatedly credited government counsel’s representations and declined earlier requests to restrain work at the course.

She later granted a preliminary injunction after President Trump’s public announcements collided with what government lawyers and officials had represented during the litigation.

That injunction temporarily bars further damage or removal of trees and requires written notice before the government makes additional irreversible changes while the lawsuit continues. The administration, meanwhile, has maintained that it is entitled to modernize the federal property and move ahead with a dramatically improved course.

The proposed inquiry now reaches across both the Justice and Interior Departments:

The next step matters. The parties may challenge Liu’s selection, and the government can still argue that Reyes should not conduct the ethics inquiry at all.

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If Liu is appointed, the court says a more detailed order will define her authority and the investigation will be conducted at government expense.

For President Trump, the immediate question is whether the November 15 closure remains on track while the court examines the conduct of the lawyers defending his plan. For the Justice Department, the stakes are even broader: a federal judge is preparing to test whether the court received a complete and accurate account from government counsel.

There is no final misconduct ruling here, and pretending otherwise would be reckless. But appointing a former Trump-era U.S. attorney to investigate the dispute makes this far more than another round of political sniping.

It puts the record, the lawyers, and the administration’s timeline under a microscope just days before work is supposed to begin.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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