A federal judge appointed a special master on Friday to investigate the possibility that the Trump administration concealed plans to overhaul East Potomac Park in Washington as the president called for construction of a professional golf course at the site.
The appointment of an outside investigator represented an escalation in a confrontation between Judge Ana C. Reyes and the Trump administration over a municipal golf course and park in the nation’s capital.
Judge Reyes, who was appointed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., had repeatedly clashed with the Justice Department in the case. She has displayed frustration with what she described as misleading attempts by officials to downplay how firm the federal government’s plans were for the park.
Her order followed a remarkable standoff with Stanley Woodward Jr., the third most senior official at the Justice Department, at a hearing Friday. At issue was whether he had personally lied in court when he told Judge Reyes that there was no immediate plan to close the course or start construction. Those comments came days after President Trump had announced on social media that work was scheduled to begin “IMMEDIATELY!”
The government acknowledged in a filing this week that it planned to close most of the park Nov. 15.
Judge Reyes emphasized on Friday that her decision did not amount to a finding that either Interior Department officials or the Justice Department lawyers had violated any rules of personal conduct. But she had already concluded at an earlier stage of the lawsuit that one senior official, Gregory Wischer, had probably withheld some of what he knew about the agency’s plans for the site.
Mr. Trump has spoken publicly for months about his desire to replace the municipal golf course in the park with a larger, more difficult one that could host professional tournaments, closely resembling the courses he owns and operates elsewhere.
A preservationist organization and two local residents sued in February to stop the current course from being replaced.
Government lawyers repeatedly told Judge Reyes that planning to fulfill Mr. Trump’s vision was in its preliminary stages, arguing it would be premature for her to order construction blocked. With those assurances in hand, Judge Reyes declined to take pre-emptive actions to dictate what decisions the federal government could make about the property’s management.
Instead, for months she ordered the Justice Department to simply notify the court if and when the federal government began taking steps to carry out the redesign, to allow time for her to explore the project’s legality.
Then, earlier this month, the Justice Department alerted the court just before 5 p.m. on the Friday of a holiday weekend that it intended to begin cutting trees at the park, describing the work as part of a routine “tree maintenance plan” to remove dead and diseased trees. Within hours, the Interior Department cleared more than 400 trees, a move the group suing interpreted as the beginning of Mr. Trump’s redevelopment. Judge Reyes quickly intervened and ordered the cutting halted.
During the hearing on Friday, she repeatedly pressed Mr. Woodward, who joined the case after the tree dispute, to clarify whether everything he had told the court to this point had been accurate. During his last appearance, she had forced Mr. Woodward to explain recent social media posts in which Mr. Trump announced that the park would close on Nov. 15 for an approximately 14-month renovation. Mr. Trump said he had secured a design by a prominent golf course architect, with whom he was photographed touring the course in June.
Mr. Woodward maintained that even after Mr. Trump’s posts, there was no “final” plan to shut the course. He also insisted that officials had been kept largely in the dark about the specifics of when and how Mr. Trump’s plan would unfold.
Judge Reyes said the special master would be tasked with determining whether the hurried tree removal was “designed to evade judicial review” and whether the Justice Department had provided false assurances that no concrete decisions had been reached.
She said the investigation would also focus on whether the Interior Department and National Park Service were truly out of the loop or if in fact top officials had been briefed on Mr. Trump’s plans and were taking steps to realize them.
The post Judge Appoints Special Master to Determine if Trump Officials Lied in Golf Course Suit appeared first on New York Times.
