Portend?<\/a> A second set of eyes might have helped there.<\/p>\n So Reyes ordered the government to refile it with the signatures of any DOJ attorneys on the case who were willing to sign. Then she turned to counsel\u2019s table and asked for a show of hands. According to Lawfare\u2019s Roger Parloff\u2019s live coverage<\/a>, it went like this:<\/p>\n REYES: Right now, for Rule 11 purposes, which other attys willing to sign this brief Woodward said that naming them would put the career lawyers in an \u201cincredibly untenable\u201d position. Which is\u2026 an interesting thing to say about your own brief.<\/p>\n By the afternoon, Reyes had backed off. \u201cHaving spoken with my clerks and thought about it a little bit more, I am going to withdraw the request that DOJ refile yesterday\u2019s brief and that I get identification as to who signed,\u201d she said. But she didn\u2019t pretend the problem had gone away. According to Parloff\u2019s report<\/a>, she told the government that when the department files briefs, the attorneys in the case should put their names on them, and if they don\u2019t, she doesn\u2019t have confidence in them.<\/p>\n Cue the outrage. \u201cBiden judge walks back order against Trump DOJ\u201d ran the Washington Examiner\u2019s headline. Over at RedState, the gotcha was that Rule 11 doesn\u2019t require every attorney on a case to sign every filing.<\/p>\n Which is true! Rule 11(a) requires a signature from one attorney of record, Woodward is one. The paperwork is in order.<\/p>\n But that was never quite the point. As my colleague Joe Patrice put it on X<\/a>:<\/p>\n If a lawyer is willing to show up to the courtroom yet unwilling to say they\u2019d sign the brief that\u2019s a huge deal actually.<\/p>\n These aren\u2019t interns. If you\u2019re at the DOJ and unwilling to put your name on something for Rule 11 purposes\u2026 yikes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And this isn\u2019t just ATL being ATL. Even an ASSLaw prof sees the logic.<\/p>\n I actually agree. If you’re “in the case,” i.e \u2026 noticed your appearance and are before the Court (and certainly a printed name on the filing below a filer), the Court has every right to ask you if you would have signed such a pleading.<\/p>\n \u2014 Rich Kelsey (@RichKelsey) October 20, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n It\u2019s the career lawyers sitting at that table who have been in this case for months, the ones who told Reyes there were no concrete plans for Trump\u2019s overhaul, the ones who promised her notice before anything irreversible happened<\/a>, right before the Park Service took a chainsaw to hundreds of trees over Columbus Day weekend. Now they\u2019re being asked to vouch that the president\u2019s posts don\u2019t mean what they plainly say, and that tearing up a historic public course is the legal equivalent of mowing the lawn. If those lawyers can\u2019t certify that, that tells you something. A political appointee being the only one who\u2019ll sign tells you something else.<\/p>\n The rest of the day didn\u2019t help the government\u2019s case. Acting National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron and Interior Department Deputy Chief of Staff Greg Wischer testified that they knew nothing about plans for a new course, and that the trees came down under a 2019 landscape plan that predates all of this. Reyes was not persuaded. \u201cDo I believe the president of the United States or do I believe you?\u201d she asked. When DOJ lawyers argued that Trump couldn\u2019t be checked by the judiciary, she pointed them to the Federalists\u2019 line about ambition checking ambition. She also told them she\u2019s been receiving death threats over this case\u2026 over a golf course.<\/p>\n The TRO runs through October 26, and Reyes signaled she\u2019s likely to extend it. But don\u2019t worry, the matter is still a personal hobby horse of the president. Overnight, Trump posted images of what he\u2019s now calling \u201cTrash Island\u201d and told the judge to \u201cstudy\u201d them. Deepest of sighs. <\/p>\n Earlier:<\/strong> Golf Course Plaintiffs Give Judge Reyes A Heads-Up: The President Called You Insane Before Breakfast<\/a> Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The post DOJ Lawyers Will Show Up For The Golf Course Case But Signing The Brief Is Another Matter Entirely<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Monday\u2019s marathon hearing over the East Potomac Golf Course had plenty of news in it. Two administration officials testified they knew nothing about the championship course the president has been posting about. A federal judge disclosed she\u2019s getting death threats over a public golf course. The Federalist Papers came up in a dispute about tree removal. But the moment that set off the right-wing echo chamber came first thing in the morning, when U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes asked which Justice Department lawyers would be willing to put their names on the government\u2019s latest brief.<\/p>\n Nobody in the room was allowed to answer.<\/p>\n The filing in question<\/a> landed Sunday night with exactly one signature, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward. Woodward is DOJ\u2019s No. 3, the official who parachuted into the case last week to demand Reyes recuse herself<\/a> and lost that fight in about 48 hours, right before the president logged on to call her a \u201ccrazed lunatic\u201d<\/a>. The brief insists \u201cthere is no final agency action here.\u201d The president has announced the course will close November 15 and that work would start \u201cIMMEDIATELY!\u201d, but the brief explains that, just as redesigning \u201call the art exhibits in a Smithsonian Museum would not be agency action, neither would a decision to redesign a golf course, or to trim trees, replace fences, expand the fairways, or mow the lawn.\u201d It also informs the court that \u201cDefendants did not portend to represent the actual position or mental impressions of the President in arguing that no final agency action had occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n Portend?<\/a> A second set of eyes might have helped there.<\/p>\n So Reyes ordered the government to refile it with the signatures of any DOJ attorneys on the case who were willing to sign. Then she turned to counsel\u2019s table and asked for a show of hands. According to Lawfare\u2019s Roger Parloff\u2019s live coverage<\/a>, it went like this:<\/p>\n REYES: Right now, for Rule 11 purposes, which other attys willing to sign this brief Woodward said that naming them would put the career lawyers in an \u201cincredibly untenable\u201d position. Which is\u2026 an interesting thing to say about your own brief.<\/p>\n By the afternoon, Reyes had backed off. \u201cHaving spoken with my clerks and thought about it a little bit more, I am going to withdraw the request that DOJ refile yesterday\u2019s brief and that I get identification as to who signed,\u201d she said. But she didn\u2019t pretend the problem had gone away. According to Parloff\u2019s report<\/a>, she told the government that when the department files briefs, the attorneys in the case should put their names on them, and if they don\u2019t, she doesn\u2019t have confidence in them.<\/p>\n Cue the outrage. \u201cBiden judge walks back order against Trump DOJ\u201d ran the Washington Examiner\u2019s headline. Over at RedState, the gotcha was that Rule 11 doesn\u2019t require every attorney on a case to sign every filing.<\/p>\n Which is true! Rule 11(a) requires a signature from one attorney of record, Woodward is one. The paperwork is in order.<\/p>\n But that was never quite the point. As my colleague Joe Patrice put it on X<\/a>:<\/p>\n If a lawyer is willing to show up to the courtroom yet unwilling to say they\u2019d sign the brief that\u2019s a huge deal actually.<\/p>\n These aren\u2019t interns. If you\u2019re at the DOJ and unwilling to put your name on something for Rule 11 purposes\u2026 yikes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And this isn\u2019t just ATL being ATL. Even an ASSLaw prof sees the logic.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the career lawyers sitting at that table who have been in this case for months, the ones who told Reyes there were no concrete plans for Trump\u2019s overhaul, the ones who promised her notice before anything irreversible happened<\/a>, right before the Park Service took a chainsaw to hundreds of trees over Columbus Day weekend. Now they\u2019re being asked to vouch that the president\u2019s posts don\u2019t mean what they plainly say, and that tearing up a historic public course is the legal equivalent of mowing the lawn. If those lawyers can\u2019t certify that, that tells you something. A political appointee being the only one who\u2019ll sign tells you something else.<\/p>\n The rest of the day didn\u2019t help the government\u2019s case. Acting National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron and Interior Department Deputy Chief of Staff Greg Wischer testified that they knew nothing about plans for a new course, and that the trees came down under a 2019 landscape plan that predates all of this. Reyes was not persuaded. \u201cDo I believe the president of the United States or do I believe you?\u201d she asked. When DOJ lawyers argued that Trump couldn\u2019t be checked by the judiciary, she pointed them to the Federalists\u2019 line about ambition checking ambition. She also told them she\u2019s been receiving death threats over this case\u2026 over a golf course.<\/p>\n The TRO runs through October 26, and Reyes signaled she\u2019s likely to extend it. But don\u2019t worry, the matter is still a personal hobby horse of the president. Overnight, Trump posted images of what he\u2019s now calling \u201cTrash Island\u201d and told the judge to \u201cstudy\u201d them. Deepest of sighs. <\/p>\n Earlier:<\/strong> Golf Course Plaintiffs Give Judge Reyes A Heads-Up: The President Called You Insane Before Breakfast<\/a> Monday\u2019s marathon hearing over the East Potomac Golf Course had plenty of news in it. Two administration officials testified they knew nothing about the championship course the president has been posting about. A federal judge disclosed she\u2019s getting death threats over a public golf course. The Federalist Papers came up in a dispute about tree […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":165373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
WOODWARD: I\u2019m going to instruct attys not to [answer].
REYES: I\u2019m ordering you all to come to the podium and sign it. I\u2019m giving them a direct order.<\/p>\n\n
\n
DOJ Demands Judge Recuse Herself For Inappropriate Noticing They Broke The Law<\/a>
\u2018You Did Your Absolute Worst\u2019: Judge Delivers Epic Benchslap Over Trump Golf Course Chainsaw Spree<\/a><\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/06\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/05\/signature-signing-electronic-signature-esignature-esign-300x201.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/figure>\n
WOODWARD: I\u2019m going to instruct attys not to [answer].
REYES: I\u2019m ordering you all to come to the podium and sign it. I\u2019m giving them a direct order.<\/p>\n\n
DOJ Demands Judge Recuse Herself For Inappropriate Noticing They Broke The Law<\/a>
\u2018You Did Your Absolute Worst\u2019: Judge Delivers Epic Benchslap Over Trump Golf Course Chainsaw Spree<\/a><\/p>\n
\nKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"