East Potomac Golf Course: Trump admin seeks to remove judge for bias

A U. S. associate attorney general has filed a motion to disqualify the U.S. District Court judge presiding over a lawsuit involving East Potomac Golf Course, a public course in Washington, D.C. that is at the center of a dispute between the federal government and city activist.

The motion, which argues that judge Ana Reyes should be removed and the case should be transferred to another district court judge, was filed at 8:33 p.m. ET on Friday by U.S. associate attorney general Stanley E. Woodward.

“To name just a few examples of bias, judge Reyes has unfairly questioned Trump Administration attorneys’ intelligence, allowed her disdain for the Trump Administration to influence how hearings unfold, and systematically disregarded basic separation of powers,” Woodward argued in the 14-page motion.

The motion to disqualify Reyes follows a contentious hearing on Monday involving the removal of trees from the East Potomac course. The National Park Service removed “about 430 healthy, non-invasive trees” from the course last weekend despite Reyes’ previous warnings for the government to provide notice “if anyone orders big things to show up [at the course].”

On Oct. 9 at 4:55 p.m. ET, the Friday before a holiday weekend, the government posted a plan to “remove ‘up to 529 trees’ from the course” to restore its “historic links-style character.” At “around 8 a.m.” on Oct. 10 the government began removing trees from East Potomac.

During the hearing on Monday, Reyes accused government officials of doing “your absolute worst; you did your absolute worst.” Woodward also argued that during that hearing Reyes showed an “unorthodox and regrettable show of judicial impropriety.”

“Judge Reyes’s histrionics in prior hearings have clearly demonstrated she is no longer impartial,” read the motion, which also called for the court to release the audio from Monday’s hearing.

Reyes granted a temporary restraining order to stop the tree removal but in Friday’s motion the government argued the work was “authorized tree maintenance in East Potomac Park.”

The plaintiffs in the case, the DC Preservation League and two local residents, opposed the government’s request to have Reyes disqualified from the case in a separate motion and deferred the release of the audio from Monday’s hearing to “the court’s discretion.”

There is a previously scheduled hearing on Monday at 10 a.m. ET in the case.