Stan Woodward is definitely earning his keep. When someone’s gotta put their name on an argument so batshit that no one else at DOJ will get near it, Woodward is their man. Which is how the associate attorney general wound up all by his lonesome in the signature block on Friday afternoon accusing a sitting federal judge of “histrionics.”
The case is DC Preservation League v. Department of Interior, a challenge to Trump’s unilateral plan to replace the East Potomac Golf Course with a “championship” course. Not content to demolish a beloved local landmark, the president cranked up the desecration meter by dumping toxic rubble from the East Wing in the park to be used as fill.
The plaintiffs, including the historical association and several golfers who routinely use the course, requested injunctive relief in February. But for nine months, the government argued that the plan to overhaul the course is merely speculative, not a final agency action which can be challenged in court. Taking the government at its word, Judge Ana Reyes declined to issue an injunction, instead asking lawyers for the DOJ and Department of Interior to inform her if the Park Service intended to make any irreversible changes
The lawyers agreed.
And yet, during the week of October 5, the administration secretly cut down hundreds of healthy trees anyway. Specifically, acting Park Services head Jessica Bowron greenlit the plan to cut down the trees on October 6. Also on October 6, Bowron signed an affidavit saying that, while NPS was “actively considering” plans to renovate the course, “several interim steps have yet to occur before a final decision can be made to go forward with any specific renovation at East Potomac Golf Course and before the NPS authorizes any associated construction activities.” That affidavit was submitted to the court as part of a motion for summary judgment on October 9.
That very afternoon, at 4:55 p.m. on the Friday of a holiday weekend, NPS informed the court that it was going to cut down hundreds of healthy trees the following morning thanks to an influx of “temporary workforce support.” A declaration submitted by NPS Superintendent Kevin Greiss said that he had “directed staff to accelerate efforts to implement long-standing treatment within East Potomac Park so that deferred maintenance and landscape restoration objectives could be advanced while sufficient workforce capacity is available.”
The plaintiffs raced into court, and Judge Reyes scheduled a hearing for Monday the 12th. Unsurprisingly, the judge was apoplectic at the flagrant abuse of her trust, accusing lawyers for DOJ and DOI of lying to her face … because they did. She made it clear that she intends to find out how this happened and who is responsible.
The following day, she issued a written TRO, reading the government for filth and setting an evidentiary hearing for today, October 19th.
The government responded by shouting, “Look at this crazy bitch!” — more or less.
This was Woodward’s cue to do his thing.
On the 16th, he — and he alone! — signed a motion accusing Judge Reyes of misconduct and demanding that she recuse herself from the case.
“At a hearing Judge Reyes convened on Columbus Day, Judge Reyes repeatedly belittled and shouted at the attorney appearing on behalf of the United States in an unorthodox and regrettable show of judicial impropriety,” he howled, adding that “In what can only be described as a personal and pernicious attack on counsel, Judge Reyes implied that counsel’s actions had caused her to question whether any government lawyer can act in good faith going forward.”
He also demanded to release audio of the hearing “to allow the American people to fully appreciate Judge Reyes’s animosity for the Trump Administration (beyond just what is revealed in a cold transcript).”
That very same day, the newly un-person-ed Katie Zacharia tweeted a photo of herself in the Oval Office with a blurred image of something that looked an awful lot like a map of East Potomac Park.
On Sunday Morning, Trump himself confirmed it, posting the map and a lengthy screed on Truth Social announcing that the golf course would close on November 15 for renovations.
This would appear to concede that the plan to renovate the course is indeed a final agency action, despite the government’s fervent denials. And it rather undercuts Woodward’s pearl-clutching over Judge Reyes’s “improper conduct blending aggression with systematic disrespect for a coequal branch of Government.”
And apparently Judge Reyes has a Truth Social account.
“The Court ORDERS that the Government notify it, by 8:00 p.m. today, whether it continues to take the position that it took in its October 16, 2026, filing, that, ‘there is no final agency action’ and that ‘at most [] the President has given preliminary thought to’ the plan to rebuild East Potomac Golf Course,” she wrote in a minute order that quoted the president’s post in full. “The Court further ORDERS Government counsel Stanley Woodward, Jr. and Robert Stander, who have filed appearances in this case, to attend in-person Monday’s hearing.”
Woodward — and Woodward alone — had an answer for the one, too. And it was a page full of middle finger emojis — more or less.
He’s sticking by his prior statement that the president is just spitballing here, although he caveats that “commenting only on the President’s publicly available statements, Defendants presented an argument about what those statements might be evidence of.” He cautions that it would be a gross violation of executive privilege to undertake further inquiry into whether Trump means it when he says “Restoration work will begin on the Fazio Design on November 15th, when the old Course will be closed to play.” And even if he did mean it, Woodward cautions that demolishing a public golf course and rebuilding it without buy-in from Congress or adherence to environmental and permitting laws would not be a final agency action subject to review under the Administrative Procedure Act.
At 11 p.m., Judge Reyes denied the motion to recuse, noting that, while Woodward accused her of “deep-seated favoritism,” she spent the past nine months ruling in favor of the government at every turn. She did not seem less annoyed than she did a week ago.
The hearing is at 10 a.m. today. Be there, will be wild.
DC Preservation League v. DOI [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye produces the Law and Chaos Substack and podcast. You can subscribe by clicking the logo:
The post DOJ Demands Judge Recuse Herself For Inappropriate Noticing They Broke The Law appeared first on Above the Law.
Stan Woodward is definitely earning his keep. When someone’s gotta put their name on an argument so batshit that no one else at DOJ will get near it, Woodward is their man. Which is how the associate attorney general wound up all by his lonesome in the signature block on Friday afternoon accusing a sitting federal judge of “histrionics.”
The case is DC Preservation League v. Department of Interior, a challenge to Trump’s unilateral plan to replace the East Potomac Golf Course with a “championship” course. Not content to demolish a beloved local landmark, the president cranked up the desecration meter by dumping toxic rubble from the East Wing in the park to be used as fill.
The plaintiffs, including the historical association and several golfers who routinely use the course, requested injunctive relief in February. But for nine months, the government argued that the plan to overhaul the course is merely speculative, not a final agency action which can be challenged in court. Taking the government at its word, Judge Ana Reyes declined to issue an injunction, instead asking lawyers for the DOJ and Department of Interior to inform her if the Park Service intended to make any irreversible changes
The lawyers agreed.
And yet, during the week of October 5, the administration secretly cut down hundreds of healthy trees anyway. Specifically, acting Park Services head Jessica Bowron greenlit the plan to cut down the trees on October 6. Also on October 6, Bowron signed an affidavit saying that, while NPS was “actively considering” plans to renovate the course, “several interim steps have yet to occur before a final decision can be made to go forward with any specific renovation at East Potomac Golf Course and before the NPS authorizes any associated construction activities.” That affidavit was submitted to the court as part of a motion for summary judgment on October 9.
That very afternoon, at 4:55 p.m. on the Friday of a holiday weekend, NPS informed the court that it was going to cut down hundreds of healthy trees the following morning thanks to an influx of “temporary workforce support.” A declaration submitted by NPS Superintendent Kevin Greiss said that he had “directed staff to accelerate efforts to implement long-standing treatment within East Potomac Park so that deferred maintenance and landscape restoration objectives could be advanced while sufficient workforce capacity is available.”
The plaintiffs raced into court, and Judge Reyes scheduled a hearing for Monday the 12th. Unsurprisingly, the judge was apoplectic at the flagrant abuse of her trust, accusing lawyers for DOJ and DOI of lying to her face … because they did. She made it clear that she intends to find out how this happened and who is responsible.
The following day, she issued a written TRO, reading the government for filth and setting an evidentiary hearing for today, October 19th.
The government responded by shouting, “Look at this crazy bitch!” — more or less.
This was Woodward’s cue to do his thing.
On the 16th, he — and he alone! — signed a motion accusing Judge Reyes of misconduct and demanding that she recuse herself from the case.
“At a hearing Judge Reyes convened on Columbus Day, Judge Reyes repeatedly belittled and shouted at the attorney appearing on behalf of the United States in an unorthodox and regrettable show of judicial impropriety,” he howled, adding that “In what can only be described as a personal and pernicious attack on counsel, Judge Reyes implied that counsel’s actions had caused her to question whether any government lawyer can act in good faith going forward.”
He also demanded to release audio of the hearing “to allow the American people to fully appreciate Judge Reyes’s animosity for the Trump Administration (beyond just what is revealed in a cold transcript).”
That very same day, the newly un-person-ed Katie Zacharia tweeted a photo of herself in the Oval Office with a blurred image of something that looked an awful lot like a map of East Potomac Park.
On Sunday Morning, Trump himself confirmed it, posting the map and a lengthy screed on Truth Social announcing that the golf course would close on November 15 for renovations.
This would appear to concede that the plan to renovate the course is indeed a final agency action, despite the government’s fervent denials. And it rather undercuts Woodward’s pearl-clutching over Judge Reyes’s “improper conduct blending aggression with systematic disrespect for a coequal branch of Government.”
And apparently Judge Reyes has a Truth Social account.
“The Court ORDERS that the Government notify it, by 8:00 p.m. today, whether it continues to take the position that it took in its October 16, 2026, filing, that, ‘there is no final agency action’ and that ‘at most [] the President has given preliminary thought to’ the plan to rebuild East Potomac Golf Course,” she wrote in a minute order that quoted the president’s post in full. “The Court further ORDERS Government counsel Stanley Woodward, Jr. and Robert Stander, who have filed appearances in this case, to attend in-person Monday’s hearing.”
Woodward — and Woodward alone — had an answer for the one, too. And it was a page full of middle finger emojis — more or less.
He’s sticking by his prior statement that the president is just spitballing here, although he caveats that “commenting only on the President’s publicly available statements, Defendants presented an argument about what those statements might be evidence of.” He cautions that it would be a gross violation of executive privilege to undertake further inquiry into whether Trump means it when he says “Restoration work will begin on the Fazio Design on November 15th, when the old Course will be closed to play.” And even if he did mean it, Woodward cautions that demolishing a public golf course and rebuilding it without buy-in from Congress or adherence to environmental and permitting laws would not be a final agency action subject to review under the Administrative Procedure Act.
At 11 p.m., Judge Reyes denied the motion to recuse, noting that, while Woodward accused her of “deep-seated favoritism,” she spent the past nine months ruling in favor of the government at every turn. She did not seem less annoyed than she did a week ago.
The hearing is at 10 a.m. today. Be there, will be wild.
DC Preservation League v. DOI [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye produces the Law and Chaos Substack and podcast. You can subscribe by clicking the logo:
