A federal judge on Thursday confronted a Justice Department lawyer about President Trump’s plans to build a championship-level golf course on a peninsula in Washington, after she ordered the department to come before her with more specific details about possible construction.
Judge Ana C. Reyes of the Federal District Court in Washington grew impatient during a hearing in which Michael Robertson, the government lawyer, struggled to provide a timeline or vision for what appeared to be accelerating efforts by the president to start work on transforming the East Potomac Golf Links.
It was the latest in a long series of standoffs and mistrustful interactions between federal judges and the Trump administration over the president’s second-term efforts to remake parts of the capital.
On Thursday, she drew parallels to the ways Mr. Trump had secretively rushed to begin other construction projects before the government acknowledged they were underway, including the ballroom the president is building to replace the East Wing of the White House.
“I’m not going to have the president of the United States and the secretary of interior say something in the public — say something very concrete in public — and then come in here in court and say that what they’re saying isn’t actually what they’re saying,” she said.
Judge Reyes waved away the government’s denials that the project was moving forward, observing that Mr. Trump appeared to be making precise plans to redesign the narrow piece of land where the current course sits into a luxury course capable of hosting professional tournaments.
She pointed to a social media post by Mr. Trump on Sunday in which he had visited the course with Tom Fazio, a well-known golf course architect who has designed several of the president’s golf courses. The president said he had “determined” that on the site, “we will build one of the Greatest Golf Courses anywhere in the World.” The post added that work on the site would begin on Sept. 1, and would “go quickly.”
Judge Reyes also noted that photographs of the men touring the site with Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, appeared to show the president holding design blueprints for the course.
“So is there a deadline, a date, somewhere on paper, in the ether, wherever, where someone has been instructed to start something on September 1?” she asked.
“Your Honor, I am not aware of any date other than what the president said — there’s no schedule in place,” Mr. Robertson, the Justice Department lawyer, said.
Judge Reyes also questioned whether the government could be trusted to go through the standard approval process or to keep the court informed if Mr. Trump started following through on renovating the course.
“I’m not sure that the presumption of regularity applies anymore, quite frankly,” she said. “It is a contested issue for sure,” she told Mr. Robertson. “But that’s not on you.”
Will Bardwell, a lawyer with the legal nonprofit Democracy Forward, which helped represent the plaintiffs, said the Trump administration had already damaged the site by dumping rubble from the East Wing demolition, and appeared determined to treat the site as its own property to exploit. He asked Judge Reyes to order the Trump administration to stop any “irretrievable” plans to redevelop the site until it completed environmental reviews.
But even as she pressed Mr. Robertson, Judge Reyes was skeptical that she could stop the Trump administration if it proceeded through the usual permitting, and if it sought environmental reviews. She expressed doubt that she could pre-empt modifications to the site until a law was clearly broken.
“I’m a pure pragmatist, which means I’m not going to do anything — anything — unless I feel like I have to do it, and if there’s a pragmatic solution,” she said. “Otherwise, I’m going to step back, because I think that federal courts should not be involved in telling the executive or the Congress what to do.”
Rather than immediately block the Trump administration from moving forward, Judge Reyes ordered the parties to confer and produce a plan within two weeks, under which they would provide updates ahead of any changes to the East Potomac course.
She made clear that she did not want to wait until “the bulldozers are starting.”
“I don’t want another demolished East Wing; I don’t want another demolished Reflecting Pool,” she said, referring to the ballroom project and the effort by Mr. Trump to renovate the Lincoln Memorial pool.
Judge Reyes pressed Mr. Robertson to confirm that despite indications the president had already commissioned a design from Mr. Fazio, there was no formal effort underway to renovate the course.
“I just want to make sure it’s loud and clear to the White House that the government’s position in a U.S. courtroom — in front of a federal judge — is that there has not been a decision made to pursue this golf course,” she said. “That it’s still ‘maybe he will, maybe he won’t.”
“Our position is: Both things can be true,” Mr. Robertson said, indicating that federal agencies were still deliberating even as Mr. Trump moved ahead with planning.
“No, both things cannot be true,” she said, adding: “So assuming that you don’t believe in multiple universes: On this earth, we have a decision that’s been made about a golf course.”
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