'Totally Beyond the Pale': Angry Judge Shuts Down Trump Administration's Mass Destruction of DC Trees
US District Judge Ana Reyes said the Trump administration's weekend removal of hundreds of trees at the East Potomac Golf Links "has cost the government all of its credibility."
A federal judge on Monday expressed outrage at the Trump administration for cutting down hundreds of trees at the East Potomac Golf Links in Washington, DC over the weekend.
As reported by journalist Scott MacFarlane in a Monday social media post, US District Judge Ana Reyes, who is overseeing a legal challenge to President Donald Trump's renovation plans for the golf course, slammed the administration for removing more than 400 trees on Saturday without providing any significant notice.
In addition to the roughly 430 trees that have already been cut down, attorneys from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) acknowledged in court that nearly 300 additional trees had also been marked for removal.
Reyes said that the trees' destruction "has cost the government all of its credibility" in the case. Later in the hearing, the judge called the administration's actions "totally beyond the pale," according to MacFarlane.
A CNN account of the Monday court hearing captured Reyes ripping into a DOJ attorney who said they were doing their "best" to keep the judge informed of tree removals.
"No," Reyes shot back, "you did your absolute worst."
Reyes ordered the total halt of all construction on the course, including the removal of any trees, until at least Tuesday at 2 pm. Reyes said that she hoped to learn more about the trees' removal from at least one other administration official involved in the project during a Tuesday hearing.
In a July ruling, Reyes had allowed construction on the golf course to continue so long as the administration notified the court ahead of time if it planned to remove more than 10 trees from the property at a time.
Per MacFarlane's account, the judge said on Monday that the administration gave the court notice that it was planning to cut down hundreds of trees at 4:55 pm on Friday afternoon, ahead of a holiday weekend.
A Monday report in The Washington Post noted that the trees at the golf course were chopped down even though the administration has only referred to Trump's renovation of the property as a "potential project" in court filings, and has not released any details about a timeline for construction or about its projected cost.
Over the last two years, Trump has developed several vanity projects throughout the nation's capital, including a luxury ballroom at the White House, a "Triumphal Arch," and botched renovations of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
Last month, Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee released a report calculating that the projected cost to taxpayers for President Donald Trump’s vanity projects has soared to more than $1.8 billion.
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