Federal judges traditionally don’t have to ask the DOJ’s number 3 if they’re kidding. But Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward is nothing if not a trailblazer.
And the trail he’s blazing involves clear cutting a whole forest of ethical norms and presumptions of DOJ integrity.
Last Friday, in the ongoing court battle over the administration’s capricious destruction of the East Potomac Golf Course, Woodward told Judge Ana Reyes that he didn’t “recall the court asking a question as to whether we were wanting to come up with a plan,” per the Independent. Given that the only reason Judge Reyes called Woodward to court in the first place was to get to the bottom of the administration’s plan — and why it seems to be at odds with what government lawyers told the court — the judge asked whether he was kidding. As Bloomberg Law News reported, the judge added: “Seriously, Mr. Woodward, come on.”
He did not, ultimately, get serious. By the end of Friday’s hearing in DC Preservation League v. Department of Interior, Reyes had opened a formal inquiry into whether Justice Department and Interior officials and lawyers made material misrepresentations to the court. She proposed assigning the matter to a special master… unless DOJ would rather Reyes do it herself.
Perhaps she just wanted to check if the DOJ is as obtuse as it pretended to be.
This case fits squarely into Trump’s preference for mounting tacky D.C. renovation projects over the business of governing, an obsession that manifested yesterday, using his a midterm election closing argument to rant about the reflecting pool that he ruined. Trump wants to take the East Potomac Golf Course — a 1920s Walter Travis public course where nine holes cost $17 — and turn it into a “World Class Championship Golf Course.” Which, presumably, he’ll name after himself until he can convert Arlington Cemetery into a companion course.
On October 10, the Park Service bulldozed hundreds of trees without meaningful notice. A furious Judge Reyes unloaded on the DOJ, noting that “I was hearing from everybody on plaintiffs’ side that this was going to happen and I said repeatedly, no, I trust the government.” For their part, government lawyers keep telling the judge that they were doing their best, which she corrected to “you did your absolute worst.” She then issued a TRO. The DOJ then moved to disqualify her while Trump took to social media to call her insane.
Now Trump has posted that the course will close for renovations “IMMEDIATELY!”
DOJ, stuck with a president won’t stop confessing, told the court to just not believe him. Reyes’s 70-page preliminary injunction opinion opens accordingly:
Rarely, if ever, has the United States Department of Justice urged a federal court not to believe the sitting President. Not to believe him that a cabinet secretary has “developed” a federal land project. Not to believe him that the secretary’s agency will destroy a historic golf course already on the land. Not to believe him that “Restoration work” will begin “IMMEDIATELY!” Not to believe him that the course “will be closed” for over a year. Not to believe what the President has repeatedly told the American public.
And yet, here we are.
The precise moment where this case became a professional responsibility matter came during the hearing:
Associate AG: With regard to the November 15th date . . . there is no plan to close the course.
THE COURT: Okay.
Associate AG: As those words have their literal meaning.
THE COURT: How about if we use the nonliteral meaning of the words.
Woodward is exactly the sort of lawyer who thinks he can play rhetorical “Simon Says” with a court. When he said, “as those words have their literal meaning,” he’s likely hoping to later defend himself with “oh, there wasn’t a file folder with the red-stamped word, ‘PLAN’ on it… so technically I was telling the truth,” and Judge Reyes preferred not to wait until then to point out that this is still unethical bullshit.
As it happened, days later, DOJ conceded that the course will close on November 15, “consistent with the President’s directive,” and also admitted that officials had spent weeks preparing a submission to the National Capital Planning Commission without telling the court. So even the literal meaning of “the course will close on November 15” turned out to be… the course will close on November 15.
The McDade Amendment subjects government lawyers to the ethical rules of the courts where they appear, despite the Trump administration pretending it doesn’t. Under D.C. Rule 3.3(a)(1), a lawyer is barred from knowingly making “a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal” or failing “to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer.”
Woodward’s coy “literal meaning” line seemed to be reaching for is Bronston v. United States, a 1973 case holding that a literally true but misleading answer isn’t perjury. But ethical obligations and perjury are not the same. The commentary surrounding the rules of candor underscore the special requirement for lawyers, noting that a statement “in open court, may properly be made only when the lawyer knows the assertion is true or believes it to be true on the basis of a reasonably diligent inquiry,” and that “[t]here may be circumstances where failure to make a disclosure is the equivalent of an affirmative misrepresentation.”
Woodward asserted, in open court, that there was no plan. A reasonably diligent inquiry would have noticed that the administration had announced the architect, the closure date, and a 15-month reopening timeline on Truth Social the day before.
The bad faith appeared to run throughout the record:
Bowron signed her October 6 declaration at 5:15 p.m. Twenty-four minutes later, she emailed her edits to the TMP to park and regional staff. See Oct. 19 Rough Tr. II at 17:24 — 18:1. Given that timeline, the omission of the TMP is not just conspicuous — it is misleading.
The TMP is the Tree Management Plan and Acting Park Service Director Jessica Bowron signed a sworn statement about the agency’s plans for the course leaving out… the plan for the course. But more importantly, she then went back to editing that plan before her coffee got cold. Asked why, she testified that she relied on government counsel’s advice — a totally believable claim based on this DOJ.
Reyes focused squarely on the lawyers: “Counsel must have known that the TMP was a material development that should have been included in any declaration attesting to NPS’s plans on the course.” The witness gets a pass precisely because the lawyers don’t. A footnote calls this “a key reason the Court is concerned about Government counsel’s actions,” citing Universal Health Services on half-truths as “actionable misrepresentations.”
Beyond 3.3, the menu of potential ethical entrees includes Rule 8.4(c)’s ban on misrepresentation, Rule 5.1’s duties for supervising lawyers, and — of course — FRCP 11 for the filings, and the court’s inherent power to sanction bad faith. The opinion already found a “strong showing of bad faith” when it ordered extra-record discovery.
The DOJ’s first response landed this morning, signed by Woodward, naming — under seal — the people who worked on the undisclosed NCPC submission. It opens:
After a diligent inquiry, the Government has identified the following individuals who drafted, edited, or provided input – or how the Government has defined “participated in preparing” – on the draft of the NCPC submission that was provided to the National Capital Planning Commission:
NOW they perform a diligent inquiry! The filing says the DOJ is “aware of others” at Interior who reviewed the draft, but won’t name them unless the judge “explicitly order[s] the same.” Given the judge has made clear that she’s blaming the lawyers advising other officials in this misconduct, the DOJ might think the court doesn’t care about Interior. But, after all the dubious claims so far in this case, Judge Reyes probably wants to know who else at Interior is willing to name a government lawyer they talked to.
As an aside, the Reyes opinion is remarkably well-written. BriefCatch creator Ross Guberman, as close to a celebrity of legal-writing pedagogy gets, ran it through his software and it scored top marks across the board:
So, obviously, the Federalist Society heads showed up in the comments to question Guberman’s software. But, especially for such a long opinion, it’s approachable, clear, and direct.
Here’s Reyes explaining why Interior Deputy Chief of Staff Gregory Wischer wasn’t credible:
Yet Wischer maintains that he — as Deputy Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Interior — just spontaneously became interested in tree and vegetation management. In mid-September. At the East Potomac Golf Course. Because of one recommendation in a seven-year-old CLR. That contained dozens of recommendations as to three golf courses. And that he had not previously heard about.
That may not appeal to the stuffier writers out there (or at least those pretending to be stuffy to defend their tribe), but stringing together fragments like that is an established technique dating at least as far back as Superintendent Chalmers asking why Skinner’s kitchen is on fire.
But, you know, the English language is probably woke.
Despite everything so far, the DOJ will presumably recommit itself to faithfully respecting the rule of law and abiding by the court’s orders.
As those words have their literal meaning.
Earlier: DOJ Lawyers Will Show Up For The Golf Course Case But Signing The Brief Is Another Matter Entirely
DOJ Demands Judge Recuse Herself For Inappropriate Noticing They Broke The Law
Golf Course Plaintiffs Give Judge Reyes A Heads-Up: The President Called You Insane Before Breakfast
‘You Did Your Absolute Worst’: Judge Delivers Epic Benchslap Over Trump Golf Course Chainsaw Spree
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
The post ‘Are You Kidding Me Right Now?’ Federal Judge Asks Trump DOJ Official appeared first on Above the Law.
Federal judges traditionally don’t have to ask the DOJ’s number 3 if they’re kidding. But Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward is nothing if not a trailblazer.
And the trail he’s blazing involves clear cutting a whole forest of ethical norms and presumptions of DOJ integrity.
Last Friday, in the ongoing court battle over the administration’s capricious destruction of the East Potomac Golf Course, Woodward told Judge Ana Reyes that he didn’t “recall the court asking a question as to whether we were wanting to come up with a plan,” per the Independent. Given that the only reason Judge Reyes called Woodward to court in the first place was to get to the bottom of the administration’s plan — and why it seems to be at odds with what government lawyers told the court — the judge asked whether he was kidding. As Bloomberg Law News reported, the judge added: “Seriously, Mr. Woodward, come on.”
He did not, ultimately, get serious. By the end of Friday’s hearing in DC Preservation League v. Department of Interior, Reyes had opened a formal inquiry into whether Justice Department and Interior officials and lawyers made material misrepresentations to the court. She proposed assigning the matter to a special master… unless DOJ would rather Reyes do it herself.
Perhaps she just wanted to check if the DOJ is as obtuse as it pretended to be.
This case fits squarely into Trump’s preference for mounting tacky D.C. renovation projects over the business of governing, an obsession that manifested yesterday, using his a midterm election closing argument to rant about the reflecting pool that he ruined. Trump wants to take the East Potomac Golf Course — a 1920s Walter Travis public course where nine holes cost $17 — and turn it into a “World Class Championship Golf Course.” Which, presumably, he’ll name after himself until he can convert Arlington Cemetery into a companion course.
On October 10, the Park Service bulldozed hundreds of trees without meaningful notice. A furious Judge Reyes unloaded on the DOJ, noting that “I was hearing from everybody on plaintiffs’ side that this was going to happen and I said repeatedly, no, I trust the government.” For their part, government lawyers keep telling the judge that they were doing their best, which she corrected to “you did your absolute worst.” She then issued a TRO. The DOJ then moved to disqualify her while Trump took to social media to call her insane.
Now Trump has posted that the course will close for renovations “IMMEDIATELY!”
DOJ, stuck with a president won’t stop confessing, told the court to just not believe him. Reyes’s 70-page preliminary injunction opinion opens accordingly:
Rarely, if ever, has the United States Department of Justice urged a federal court not to believe the sitting President. Not to believe him that a cabinet secretary has “developed” a federal land project. Not to believe him that the secretary’s agency will destroy a historic golf course already on the land. Not to believe him that “Restoration work” will begin “IMMEDIATELY!” Not to believe him that the course “will be closed” for over a year. Not to believe what the President has repeatedly told the American public.
And yet, here we are.
The precise moment where this case became a professional responsibility matter came during the hearing:
Associate AG: With regard to the November 15th date . . . there is no plan to close the course.
THE COURT: Okay.
Associate AG: As those words have their literal meaning.
THE COURT: How about if we use the nonliteral meaning of the words.
Woodward is exactly the sort of lawyer who thinks he can play rhetorical “Simon Says” with a court. When he said, “as those words have their literal meaning,” he’s likely hoping to later defend himself with “oh, there wasn’t a file folder with the red-stamped word, ‘PLAN’ on it… so technically I was telling the truth,” and Judge Reyes preferred not to wait until then to point out that this is still unethical bullshit.
As it happened, days later, DOJ conceded that the course will close on November 15, “consistent with the President’s directive,” and also admitted that officials had spent weeks preparing a submission to the National Capital Planning Commission without telling the court. So even the literal meaning of “the course will close on November 15” turned out to be… the course will close on November 15.
The McDade Amendment subjects government lawyers to the ethical rules of the courts where they appear, despite the Trump administration pretending it doesn’t. Under D.C. Rule 3.3(a)(1), a lawyer is barred from knowingly making “a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal” or failing “to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer.”
Woodward’s coy “literal meaning” line seemed to be reaching for is Bronston v. United States, a 1973 case holding that a literally true but misleading answer isn’t perjury. But ethical obligations and perjury are not the same. The commentary surrounding the rules of candor underscore the special requirement for lawyers, noting that a statement “in open court, may properly be made only when the lawyer knows the assertion is true or believes it to be true on the basis of a reasonably diligent inquiry,” and that “[t]here may be circumstances where failure to make a disclosure is the equivalent of an affirmative misrepresentation.”
Woodward asserted, in open court, that there was no plan. A reasonably diligent inquiry would have noticed that the administration had announced the architect, the closure date, and a 15-month reopening timeline on Truth Social the day before.
The bad faith appeared to run throughout the record:
Bowron signed her October 6 declaration at 5:15 p.m. Twenty-four minutes later, she emailed her edits to the TMP to park and regional staff. See Oct. 19 Rough Tr. II at 17:24 — 18:1. Given that timeline, the omission of the TMP is not just conspicuous — it is misleading.
The TMP is the Tree Management Plan and Acting Park Service Director Jessica Bowron signed a sworn statement about the agency’s plans for the course leaving out… the plan for the course. But more importantly, she then went back to editing that plan before her coffee got cold. Asked why, she testified that she relied on government counsel’s advice — a totally believable claim based on this DOJ.
Reyes focused squarely on the lawyers: “Counsel must have known that the TMP was a material development that should have been included in any declaration attesting to NPS’s plans on the course.” The witness gets a pass precisely because the lawyers don’t. A footnote calls this “a key reason the Court is concerned about Government counsel’s actions,” citing Universal Health Services on half-truths as “actionable misrepresentations.”
Beyond 3.3, the menu of potential ethical entrees includes Rule 8.4(c)’s ban on misrepresentation, Rule 5.1’s duties for supervising lawyers, and — of course — FRCP 11 for the filings, and the court’s inherent power to sanction bad faith. The opinion already found a “strong showing of bad faith” when it ordered extra-record discovery.
The DOJ’s first response landed this morning, signed by Woodward, naming — under seal — the people who worked on the undisclosed NCPC submission. It opens:
After a diligent inquiry, the Government has identified the following individuals who drafted, edited, or provided input – or how the Government has defined “participated in preparing” – on the draft of the NCPC submission that was provided to the National Capital Planning Commission:
NOW they perform a diligent inquiry! The filing says the DOJ is “aware of others” at Interior who reviewed the draft, but won’t name them unless the judge “explicitly order[s] the same.” Given the judge has made clear that she’s blaming the lawyers advising other officials in this misconduct, the DOJ might think the court doesn’t care about Interior. But, after all the dubious claims so far in this case, Judge Reyes probably wants to know who else at Interior is willing to name a government lawyer they talked to.
As an aside, the Reyes opinion is remarkably well-written. BriefCatch creator Ross Guberman, as close to a celebrity of legal-writing pedagogy gets, ran it through his software and it scored top marks across the board:
So, obviously, the Federalist Society heads showed up in the comments to question Guberman’s software. But, especially for such a long opinion, it’s approachable, clear, and direct.
Here’s Reyes explaining why Interior Deputy Chief of Staff Gregory Wischer wasn’t credible:
Yet Wischer maintains that he — as Deputy Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Interior — just spontaneously became interested in tree and vegetation management. In mid-September. At the East Potomac Golf Course. Because of one recommendation in a seven-year-old CLR. That contained dozens of recommendations as to three golf courses. And that he had not previously heard about.
That may not appeal to the stuffier writers out there (or at least those pretending to be stuffy to defend their tribe), but stringing together fragments like that is an established technique dating at least as far back as Superintendent Chalmers asking why Skinner’s kitchen is on fire.
But, you know, the English language is probably woke.
Despite everything so far, the DOJ will presumably recommit itself to faithfully respecting the rule of law and abiding by the court’s orders.
As those words have their literal meaning.
Earlier: DOJ Lawyers Will Show Up For The Golf Course Case But Signing The Brief Is Another Matter Entirely
DOJ Demands Judge Recuse Herself For Inappropriate Noticing They Broke The Law
Golf Course Plaintiffs Give Judge Reyes A Heads-Up: The President Called You Insane Before Breakfast
‘You Did Your Absolute Worst’: Judge Delivers Epic Benchslap Over Trump Golf Course Chainsaw Spree
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
The post ‘Are You Kidding Me Right Now?’ Federal Judge Asks Trump DOJ Official appeared first on Above the Law.
