A former federal prosecutor says that the Trump administration burned its last shred of goodwill with a judge who once trusted it.
Speaking on a Tuesday episode of his “Talking Feds” show, former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman said U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes has put the Justice Department “in the penalty box sort of permanently” after crews tore out hundreds of trees at Washington’s East Potomac Golf Course without the advance notice she ordered.
“Scratch one more federal judge from the ranks of judges who will ever trust the Trump administration,” Litman said.
The public course is one target of Trump’s broader push to remake the capital. In May, Reyes instructed the Trump administration to give her advance notice before removing more than 10 trees there. Crews began cutting over the weekend anyway, with plans to take down as many as 529 trees. On Monday, Reyes halted the work until at least 7 a.m. Tuesday and demanded to know who approved it.
“Lo and behold, over the weekend, here come the big green bulldozers as people are playing and rip up hundreds of trees on the course,” Litman said.
The Trump administration has argued the work was long planned and meant to return the course to its historic layout. Litman wasn’t buying it.
“That doesn’t remotely cut it because we’re in the middle of proceedings where they’ve had orders,” he said.
Litman said the Occam’s razor explanation was that the officials hid the plan until it was too late to stop, seizing “a good opportunity when no one’s looking” to do something irreversible.
He described Monday’s emergency hearing as “a kind of classic Trumpian finger-pointing exercise,” with each official Reyes questioned blaming someone else. The official said to have given the order wasn’t available, so Reyes wants to hear from that person Tuesday.
Litman also took aim at Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who mocked the judge. Litman read Miller’s remark that he “missed the part of the constitutional convention that put federal judges in charge of golf course maintenance.”
“No, he missed the part of the constitutional convention and the Constitution that says the executive branch has to follow the orders of the judicial branch,” Litman said. “You bet your life she’s in charge of golf course maintenance.”
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