Biden-appointed Judge Ana Reyes erupted at DOJ lawyers after roughly 430 trees fell at East Potomac Golf Links on scant holiday-weekend notice, saying the government lost all credibility.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes unloaded on Trump administration attorneys during an emergency hearing in Washington after the National Park Service moved ahead with heavy tree removal at East Potomac Golf Links on Hains Point.

A government lawyer acknowledged that about 430 trees were already down. The court fight centers on how little notice plaintiffs and the bench received before the saws started, and on whether the work fits a 2019 National Park Service landscape plan or a larger redesign push tied to President Donald Trump’s interest in a championship-caliber public course.

Fox News reported that Reyes, nominated by President Biden in 2023, told government counsel the late alert undercut their standing before the court.

"You've lost credibility!"

Journalist Scott MacFarlane live-tweeted the exchange and said he had never heard a judge scream at full voice at a lawyer before. Reyes pressed the timing hard.

"At 4:55pm on a Friday of a holiday weekend, the plaintiffs and I get [little] notice that hundreds of trees are going to be chopped down,"

She also demanded of counsel, “Do you have email or a cell phone?” The administration maintains the removals implement a 2019 National Park Service landscape-restoration plan that predates any Trump redesign proposal and stands separate from it.

Weekend cutting met a Monday courtroom blast

Government counsel reportedly learned of the operation around Oct. 8 or 9. Notice went out at 4:55 p.m. Friday of a holiday weekend that removal would begin Saturday. By the Monday hearing, hundreds of trees were gone and the credibility fight was fully joined.

The Washington Examiner reported that Reyes issued a minute order blocking further tree cutting until Tuesday at 7 a.m., ahead of the Monday morning hearing, as historic preservationists pressed their challenge.

East Potomac Golf Links sits on national parkland on an island connected to the city by the Jefferson Memorial and the Francis Case Bridge. Preservationists argue environmental and historic-preservation rules were not met. The administration disputes that reading and points back to the 2019 NPS plan.

That pattern of high-stakes orders from Biden-selected benches will sound familiar to readers who followed how a Biden-appointed judge halted remaining DHS-funded Trump ads in another clash with the executive branch.

Just The News described a tense three-hour hearing in which Reyes accused the government of deceiving her over the holiday weekend actions and ordered a 24-hour halt to the work at the historic D.C. public course.

Former Obama ethics lawyer Norm Eisen and the Democracy Defenders Fund, whose mission statement speaks of engineering “broad legal resistance” to the president, treated the emergency setting as a win. Eisen posted a victory-lap message on X after the court agreed to hear the dispute on an emergency footing.

Prior warnings and a longer paper trail

This was not Reyes’s first sharp exchange with Trump-world lawyers. The Justice Department previously filed a formal misconduct complaint over alleged bias, including her questioning in transgender military service litigation about how Jesus Christ would respond to certain policy claims. In a 2025 case she ruled that Trump violated federal notice requirements when he fired several inspectors general, then declined to reinstate them.

Readers tracking other capital-region accountability fights have seen similar friction, including when a Biden-appointed judge ordered release of an alleged MS-13 member wanted for murder and drew a fierce DHS response.

The New York Post reported that Reyes rejected a temporary restraining order sought by Democracy Forward yet warned of “serious consequences” if the administration moved major work without proper notice, citing recent District projects that looked like act-first, seek-forgiveness-later.

"Let’s just say, given some issues around the District recently, I would have a particular concern that we not act first and ask forgiveness later... If anything like that happens, there are going to be serious consequences."

She added she did not want to be told after the fact by the government, a foundation, or a bulldozing company that it was too late to act. Under her earlier framework, notice was required before cutting more than 10 trees or bringing in large equipment.

Trump has said he wants East Potomac transformed into a championship-level public course on par with facilities he has been associated with in the United States, Ireland, and Scotland. Separately, he announced plans for Jack Nicklaus to redesign golf courses at Joint Base Andrews, which he called “really bad” and burdened with “400-year-old grass.” The administration still frames the East Potomac cutting as execution of the older NPS restoration plan, not as a free-standing political remodel.

Scolding from the bench, stop-work on the ground

Breitbart reported that Reyes blasted the administration for chopping at least 430 trees with less than a day’s notice despite prior court warnings, barred further cutting or work until at least 2 p.m. Tuesday, and ordered a top Interior Department appointee to testify, saying she had no faith in the government’s word.

"More than just being upset and furious right now, I am just beyond disappointed with the government,"

When a Justice Department attorney tried to narrow the damage, Reyes shot back, “No, you did your absolute worst.” The UK Independent, cited in the primary coverage, said she excoriated federal counsel for about 15 minutes.

The lawsuit track, including action tied to groups fighting the overhaul, sits alongside other Trump administration legal battles now headed toward higher courts, such as when the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to rule on the transgender military service ban.

Local context matters for a national audience. East Potomac is a public facility on National Park Service land in the heart of the capital, not a private club. The fight is about notice, statutory process, and how far a single district judge will go to freeze executive land-management work already underway. D.C.-area enforcement and justice stories continue to draw eyes for the same reason, process fights in the capital rarely stay quiet, as when ICE arrested more than 1,300 illegal immigrants in a two-week D.C.-area operation.

Open questions remain thick. Full calendar dates and the complete docket caption were not laid out in the initial wave of coverage. The exact final scope of trees planned versus the roughly 430 already cut is still fuzzy. Government counsel’s full courtroom answers beyond the paraphrases and the judge’s rebukes were not transcribed at length in the first reports. What is plain is the sequence: late Friday notice, Saturday cutting, Monday eruption, and a short-fuse halt while the bench demands more testimony.

When a federal judge turns a park-service tree job into a credibility trial, voters can see the real contest, whether elected administrations still get to execute lawful land plans, or whether every bulldozer in the capital needs a permission slip from the most aggressive courtroom first.