‘THOROUGHLY UNAMUSED’

Furious Judge Halts Chainsaw Blitz at Trump’s Dream Golf Course

She also raged at the timing of the Interior Department’s notification.

Donald Trump has been torn to shreds by a judge over his latest vanity project, which she said has “cost the government all of its credibility.”

WHIFF

Trump’s Secret Moves for Golf Course Fantasy Exposed

Janna Brancolini

The 80-year-old president is ripping up Washington, D.C.’s busiest public golf course—the 106-year-old East Potomac Links—and rebuilding it in his own image. As part of the still unapproved project, for which the administration has presented no final plan, the National Park Service cut down more than 500 trees on Saturday.

His premature wood whacking incensed U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes, after she demanded in September that the government inform her if it intended to begin any major work on the project.

Reyes, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, said she was “thoroughly unamused” at an emergency hearing on Monday. She not only ordered the Interior Department to stop, but also to explain why it had already done the work it had done.

She said that the Park Service had filed a notification of its plan to start work early Saturday morning at 4:55 p.m. on the Friday of a holiday weekend.

“I do not know how I could have made it any plainer. I did not want what happened to happen,” she said according to The Washington Sun, before saying the move had “cost the government all of its credibility.”

“Ignorance is not an excuse,” Reyes said, according to Politico’s legal affairs correspondent Kyle Cheney reported.

“I was hearing from everybody on plaintiffs’ side that this was going to happen. I said repeatedly no, I trust the government. I trusted you all not to do precisely what you have done. Not only does that make it inexcusable...

“I am just at a total loss to understand what has happened here, other than—Occam’s razor time—that the government precisely intended to do precisely what it has done, which is intentionally delay letting the plaintiffs and the court know what is happening so they can put a plan in place to clear hundreds and hundreds of trees.”

Reyes’ order is in place until 7 a.m. Tuesday. She added: “If that order is violated by two seconds, there are going to be contempt proceedings.”

Her order represents a small win for preservationists and the frustrated residents of the capital who use the historic golf course, but they aren’t holding their breath.

“We are glad the judge has stepped in to temporarily stop it, and we are very, very worried about the government’s plans for East Potomac Park,” Washington Area Bicycle Association executive director Elizabeth Kiker told the Daily Beast.

The order follows an emergency motion filed Sunday by the D.C. Preservation League, which called for the tree cutting to be halted.

“Although they initially represented that their work would proceed in stages, Defendants in fact took down 529 trees on Saturday alone and have confirmed to Plaintiffs that they intend to take down hundreds more,” the filing, seen by the Beast, says.

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“We have seen this playbook too many times to sit up here and pretend that we don’t know where this is going and how this story ends,” Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, told The Washington Post in September.

He called it a “methodical, deliberate effort to take a public park away from the people” and “turn it into another gilded private golf club for the mega rich.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

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