A federal judge has rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to remove her from the legal battle over President Trump’s planned overhaul of East Potomac Golf Links.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued a 13-page opinion Sunday denying DOJ’s recusal motion and declaring that the government had failed to meet the demanding legal standard for disqualification.

The ruling keeps Reyes on a case that has rapidly become one of the most closely watched fights over President Trump’s effort to transform Washington, D.C.

The decision landed only hours after the president unveiled a concrete renovation plan for the historic public course.

DOJ had accused Reyes of displaying hostility toward administration lawyers and prejudging issues that had not yet been formally decided. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward filed the motion Friday night and asked that the case be reassigned.

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Reyes answered with the record.

In the court’s memorandum opinion, she noted that she had repeatedly declined earlier requests to restrain the government’s work at the course. Before the latest confrontation, the judge said, she had denied roughly a dozen requests by the plaintiffs for some form of intervention.

That changed after federal officials gave notice late on the Friday of a holiday weekend that tree removal would begin within hours. According to the order, crews then removed nearly 430 trees in one day before rain interrupted the work.

Reyes acknowledged that she had been “furious” and “beyond disappointed” during the emergency hearing that followed. But she concluded that a judge’s anger over events in a case does not, by itself, establish the kind of deep-seated bias that requires recusal.

Her bottom line was blunt: DOJ had not carried its “heavy burden,” and the motion was denied.

The legal fight is unfolding just as President Trump has moved his renovation vision from broad ambition to a detailed public timetable.

The Associated Press reports that the president plans to close East Potomac beginning November 15 for approximately 15 months. The project, developed by the Interior Department under Secretary Doug Burgum with golf-course architect Tom Fazio, is intended to produce an 18-hole championship course capable of hosting a major tournament.

The president said the rebuilt course would remain open to the public after the work is complete.

That announcement matters to the lawsuit because government lawyers had previously maintained that there was no final agency action and described the president’s plans as preliminary. Reyes ordered the government to tell the court whether it still stood by that position after the new announcement.

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The renovation plan and the tree-removal dispute are related, but they are not identical. The administration has said the tree work was intended to restore the course’s historic links-style landscape and address unhealthy or hazardous trees.

The plaintiffs argue that the clearing is tied to the larger redevelopment and should not proceed without required environmental and historic-preservation review.

Reyes has temporarily barred additional tree cutting through October 26. Her Sunday recusal ruling does not decide the ultimate merits of the renovation plan, and it does not permanently stop the project.

It means the same judge will continue presiding over the case while those questions are litigated.

National Park Service planning materials identify the work as a cultural-landscape rehabilitation project covering the East Potomac Golf Links and other park facilities. The agency opened a public-comment period in 2025 as it evaluated changes to the federally owned site.

East Potomac’s golf landscape dates to the early twentieth century and has remained accessible to the public for generations. The course’s age, federal ownership and historic character are central to the plaintiffs’ argument that major changes require environmental and preservation review.

That history helps explain why a fight over tree removal quickly expanded into a high-stakes test of the administration’s renovation timetable.

For DOJ, the immediate result is a clear defeat: its effort to replace Reyes failed.

For President Trump, the larger battle is still very much alive. He has now put a closure date, a construction window and a championship-course vision before the public.

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The court, the administration and the project’s opponents are heading into the next round with the stakes—and the factual record—sharply defined.

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

 

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