The Trump administration is seeking to remove the judge presiding over the East Potomac Park case after she barred officials from removing more trees from the public golf course this week — asking that she be replaced with someone who doesn’t show “open hostility” toward the government.
Justice Department lawyers, in a motion filed Friday evening, are accusing U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes of unfairly questioning government attorneys’ intelligence, saying she allowed her disdain for the administration to influence how hearings unfold and had generally overstepped her authority.
Central to the escalating tensions is the administration’s decision last weekend to remove 430 healthy, non-invasive trees from the Washington, D.C., course, with plans to cut down more — despite government lawyers’ promise to provide the court ample notice before doing so.
Sign up for The Washington Sun Metro newsletter for essential coverage of the D.C. region.
Trending
Reyes issued a restraining order Monday after a four-hour hearing, during which Reyes excoriated the government for not giving notice and said the administration had lost all of its credibility in the case. She also requested an Interior Department official testify under oath in the case to determine if she’d been lied to during proceedings.
“On what universe did anyone in your office think that was acceptable?” Reyes asked a DOJ attorney.
The attorney responded, “Your honor, we did our best.”
“No, you did not do your best,” she replied. “You did your absolute worst.”
The DOJ accused Reyes of belittling and shouting at its attorney “in an unorthodox and regrettable show of judicial impropriety” requesting she recuse herself from the case.
During the hearing, the DOJ said Reyes’ behavior cast doubt on whether government attorneys can act in good faith after she at one point said “the government can’t be trusted,” according to the motion.
Plaintiffs issued a response to the DOJ motion later Friday in opposition to the attempt to remove Reyes from the case, saying the government’s filing had incorrectly summarized their position as against publicly releasing a recording of the hearing. They said they had no reason to believe Reyes should be recused from the case and added that they would be fine with releasing court audio.
In February, the D.C. Preservation League, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting historic spaces, sued the Interior Department, asking the court to bar the administration from conducting renovations on the East Potomac Park land for President Donald Trump’s golf course construction project.
During proceedings, government lawyers repeatedly assured the court they would provide advance notice of major developments that could affect the more than 100-year-old course. Reyes told the attorneys in May that “if anyone orders big things to show up, and by ‘big things,’ I mean anything, you know, more than my sedan — then I want plaintiffs to have notice.”
The government notified the court of the pending removal of 529 trees at 4:55 p.m. on Oct. 9, which would constitute around 13% of the site’s trees. Over the next two days, the government removed roughly 430 trees, “none of which were hazardous or posed safety concerns,” the temporary restraining order says.
In prior hearings, Reyes provided the government with “the benefit of the doubt” that it would not “act first and ask forgiveness later.”
In Friday’s motion, however, the government described her behavior as “nothing short of egregious.”
“Her misconduct in other high-profile litigation involving the Trump Administration only confirms that she cannot serve as an impartial arbiter of the issues in this case,” the motion, signed by Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr.
In March, Reyes blocked the Trump administration’s attempts to ban transgender people from military service, finding the policy would likely violate the Constitution.
Reyes would need to grant the motion to recuse herself. If she denies it, the Trump administration could ask the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene.
If approved, the case would be transferred to another judge.
Federal law requires judges to disqualify themselves from legal proceedings if it’s determined their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” the motion states.
“No reasonable observer could consider Judge Reyes sufficiently impartial to adjudicate this case,” Woodward wrote.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Monday, October 19.
Author
