President Donald Trump announced in a Truth Social post on Sunday that the administration has developed a plan to redevelop the East Potomac Golf Links course in Washington, D.C., which has been at the center of a legal battle over his renovation plans.
Trump said that the Interior Department worked with golf course architect Tom Fazio to develop “a plan to build a World Class Championship Golf Course on the site of the current East Potomac Golf Links, located in Washington, D.C.”
“When completed, it will be open to the Public while, at the same time, designed to the Highest Level of Golf and able to hold World Class Tournaments such as the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship, the Ryder Cup, and the Presidents Cup,” Trump said in the post.
He said that the renovations would begin on Nov. 15 and take about 15 months.
The proposed renovation, though, has already been challenged in court by a preservation group and two D.C. residents.
Following Trump’s Truth Social post, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes ordered the administration to inform her whether they still plan to argue that there remains no “final agency action” and that Trump’s plan to rebuild the East Potomac Golf Course is purely “preliminary.”
Justice Department attorneys have long argued that any plans to turn East Potomac into a championship-style golf course were simply hypothetical and not rooted in any formal plan.
National Park Service officials also told Reyes last week that they were aware of no formal plan to renovate East Potomac beyond what they saw from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Trump’s previous social media posts.
Last week, Reyes forbade the administration from cutting down more trees at the course through Oct. 26. The administration had cut down hundreds of trees from the course, causing Reyes to hit back, saying she was “furious.”
“I was hearing from everyone on plaintiffs’ side 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,” Reyes responded at the time.
She also said that incident “cost the government all of its credibility.”
Reyes said that the administration must provide her and the plaintiffs three business days’ written advance notice before making any “irreparable modification” to the golf course. The judge previously rejected the plaintiffs’ request for a restraining order because lawyers for the Trump administration said they would provide ample notice of large-scale work.
On Friday, the administration asked Reyes to recuse herself from the case, arguing that her “histrionics in prior hearings have clearly demonstrated she is no longer impartial.”
The judge will hold a hearing Monday in which she has called on the acting director of the National Park Service and the Interior Department’s chief of staff to testify under oath. Reyes on Sunday also required Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward to attend the hearing.
In Sunday’s Truth Social post, Trump said that the “current Course is old, broken, dilapidated, and of no further use or effect.”
The golf course renovation is the latest in a string of major changes the president has tried to make to the D.C. landscape. He is continuing to build the White House ballroom and has pushed forward on plans to build a “triumphal arch.” His handpicked Kennedy Center board also voted to close the renowned arts center for renovations, and the administration moved to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, though the lining ended up peeling.
