The Justice Department on Friday filed a motion to disqualify Judge Ana C. Reyes from a lawsuit about East Potomac Golf Links. This move followed a Monday clash where the judge got angry after officials cleared trees. She had ordered the government not to do surprise work on the course.
Escalating a standoff with Judge Ana C. Reyes, the Justice Department demanded that she recuse herself from a case in which she had ordered several Trump officials to testify.
The Justice Department on Friday filed a motion seeking to disqualify the federal judge presiding over a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's changes to the East Potomac Golf Links, demanding that she recuse herself from the case.
The motion in the escalating standoff followed a remarkable clash on Monday, when a group of preservationists and Washingtonians behind the lawsuit informed Judge Ana C. Reyes that the Trump administration had moved to abruptly clear hundreds of trees from the golf course. Judge Reyes had previously ordered the government in blunt terms not to carry out any surprise work on the municipal course, which President Trump has proposed transforming into a championship-level one.
The revelation that the government had appeared to surreptitiously clear cut large sections of the course over a holiday weekend while giving less than 24 hours of notice drew Judge Reyes' fury.
In a heated, four-hour hearing on Monday, she demanded to know who in the federal government had directed subordinates at the Interior Department to begin work on the course, going as far as to call two additional department officials to testify on the spot about what had happened.
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