Trump Says East Potomac Work Starts

President Donald Trump said on Oct. 18 that his administration has a plan to turn Washington’s East Potomac Golf Links into what he called a championship course, a public announcement that cut directly across the government’s position in court that no final plan had been adopted.

In a Truth Social post, Trump said the Interior Department had worked with golf architect Tom Fazio on a redevelopment plan and that renovations would begin on Nov. 15 and take about 15 months. He said the rebuilt course would remain open to the public and be capable of hosting events such as the U.S. Open and the Ryder Cup.

That matters because the administration has been telling U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes that any championship redesign was still hypothetical. NBC News reported that, after Trump’s post, Reyes ordered the administration to say whether it still intended to argue there had been no “final agency action” and that the golf project remained merely preliminary.

The dispute is not abstract. A preservation group and two Washington residents have challenged the project in court. Reyes has already barred the administration from cutting more trees at the course through Oct. 26 and required three business days’ written notice before any “irreparable modification” to the site. The court had previously denied a restraining order after government lawyers said they would give ample notice before major work.

That promise did not survive contact with the bulldozers. According to NBC News, the administration had already cut down hundreds of trees, prompting Reyes to say in court that the episode had cost the government its credibility.

The administration has also asked Reyes to recuse herself, arguing that her conduct at prior hearings showed partiality. The judge has called the acting director of the National Park Service and the Interior Department’s chief of staff to testify under oath at the next hearing, and required Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward to attend.

Trump’s post supplied the one thing the case had been circling: an asserted start date and an asserted plan. Whether that amounts to formal agency action is now harder for the administration to treat as a hypothetical question.