By Tierney Sneed, Katelyn Polantz, Michael Williams, CNN
(CNN) — One of the tensest showdowns between the Trump administration and the federal bench in Washington, DC, came to a head on Monday in a marathon court hearing over the President Donald Trump’s efforts to overhaul a golf course that has been the subject of months of litigation.
Trump early Monday doubled down on his plan to close and renovate a public Washington, DC, golf course, saying construction would begin “IMMEDIATELY” despite a judge’s order to provide three days’ notice ahead of any construction.
Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that the government does not “need an approval” to proceed with the construction.
“Work is scheduled to begin IMMEDIATELY! The finished product will be World Class, and bring income and great prestige back to D.C.,” he wrote.
But his plan to renovate the East Potomac Golf Course is already the subject of a legal fight as preservationists and golfers seek to stop the president from changing the public park.
The case may seem relatively minor compared to some of the other sweeping legal battles of Trump’s second term. But the litigation has demanded the attention of several top attorneys from the Justice Department, who have sought to defend the actions government officials who are overseeing the course and have tried distinguish them from the president’s public statements about his intentions for the grounds.
US District Judge Ana C. Reyes, who is overseeing the case, issued an order last week that requires the government to give at least three days’ notice before making any “irreparable modification” to the course.
Reyes and the third-highest ranking Justice Department official, Associate Attorney General Stan Woodward, sparred repeatedly over the information she was demanding from the administration. The question in the case, since last Monday, had largely been about the administration removing, with less of a day’s notice to the court, of 400-plus trees from the park earlier this month.
But the hearing on Monday quickly turned into a clash over what Trump wrote on social media, the Justice Department’s ability to defend separate assertions made by the National Park Service in court, and how far the federal trial-level court can go to demand answers from the executive branch.
“I don’t know what to do, when I keep getting different stories,” Reyes told Woodward as the hearing began with a heated moment.
“I have, on the one hand the president of the United States saying to the American people … there is a final plan,” Reyes said hours later in the same hearing Monday. “I have you all telling me, witnesses saying what they’re saying, there is no final plan … which is it?”
Reyes is considering whether to issue a longer-term order limiting what the administration can do to the course, including cutting down more trees that are still standing.
Last week, Reyes presided over a testy hearing in which she said she was “furious” with the administration for removing hundreds of trees without proper notice. The government claimed the removals were routine maintenance unrelated to any plan to renovate the golf course. Reyes ordered that no more trees be cut down before October 26.
The Justice Department on Friday filed a motion asking for Reyes’ removal from the case, accusing her of having a “disdain for the Trump Administration.” Reyes over the weekend denied that motion and refuted the government’s claims against her.
In his Monday post to Truth Social, Trump disparaged Reyes a “crazed lunatic.”
The course is one of several renovation projects Trump is working on in Washington. The president’s desire to turn the public course into a professional course — a renovation that could cost between $20 million and $49 million — has angered those who fear it may take away a public and affordable place to play golf in the nation’s capital.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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