President Donald Trump said Sunday that the administration has developed a plan to remake East Potomac Golf Links in Washington, D.C., starting Nov. 15 and lasting about 15 months. He said the project would turn the public course into a World Class Championship Golf Course.
That announcement matters because the project is already before U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes, who is pressing the administration to explain whether the rebuild is real or still only a preliminary idea. Trump said the renovated course would remain open to the public when finished and would be built to the highest level of golf, with the capacity to host events such as the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship, the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup.
Trump also described the current course as old, broken, dilapidated and of no further use or effect. He said the Interior Department worked with golf course architect Tom Fazio on the plan, which is the first public description of a developed renovation rather than a vague concept. The question now is not whether the administration wants a championship-style layout. It is what, exactly, it intends to change.
That gap is central to Reyes’ review. Justice Department attorneys have told the court that championship-course plans for East Potomac were hypothetical and not rooted in any formal plan, while National Park Service officials told Reyes last week they knew of no formal renovation plan beyond what they had seen from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Trump’s earlier social media posts. Reyes has also already barred the administration from cutting down more trees at the course through Oct. 26 after saying the government had lost credibility when hundreds of trees were removed.
She ordered the administration to tell her whether it still plans to argue there has been no final agency action and that the project remains purely preliminary. On Friday, the administration asked her to recuse herself. On Monday, Reyes is set to hold a hearing, and she has called on the acting director of the National Park Service and the Interior Department’s chief of staff to testify under oath. For now, the new plan does not settle the case. It sharpens it.
