Judge Ana Reyes closed a nearly seven-hour hearing by abandoning her demand that Justice Department lawyers refile a Sunday brief and name who signed it, ending a tense procedural fight that had put Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. at the center of the dispute.
The clash sits inside a larger battle over the Trump administration’s plan to overhaul East Potomac Golf Links in Washington, D.C., and over National Park Service tree removals that already stripped roughly 430 trees from the federally owned course. Reyes, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2023, had earlier imposed a temporary restraining order barring further tree cutting. Fox News Digital reported the Monday retreat after hours of argument over filings, bias claims, and the court’s next moves.
For conservatives watching the courts, the stakes are plain. A Biden-appointed judge pressed DOJ lawyers hard, invoked the threat of Rule 11 sanctions, then stepped back after the department’s leadership refused to treat a signer hunt as routine process. Rule 11 is the federal rule that lets a court police filings for a proper factual and legal basis and, in serious cases, impose sanctions.
The Sunday filing carried only Woodward’s signature. Reyes ordered department attorneys to the podium, set tight deadlines, and demanded a refiled brief identifying the signer. Woodward called that demand “not an appropriate request.”
Reyes initially set an 8 p.m. filing deadline after President Donald Trump posted about renovation plans. She later moved an identification deadline to 3 p.m., then extended it to noon Tuesday, before dropping the demand altogether.
The Washington Examiner reported that a Trump administration lawyer had branded the bench command “untenable” hours earlier, and that the hearing stretched beyond six hours before Reyes reversed course.
Reyes framed the walk-back in open court.
"Late breaking news," Reyes said. "I'm going to withdraw request that DOJ refile yesterday's brief with identification of who signed it. we've all got better things to spend our time on."
The Examiner separately quoted her saying she had “spoken with my clerks and thought about it a little bit more” before withdrawing the refile and identification request. Both accounts show the same endpoint: the signer order did not survive the day.
Hours before the hearing, Trump posted on Truth Social that “the judge on the case is a crazed lunatic whose courthouse tapes will reveal, may be insane?” He said the tapes “have been blocked from usage by the judge.” He also said the administration has a “right” to turn the course into a “great, safe, and prestigious” golf course.
"Work is scheduled to begin IMMEDIATELY! The finished product will be World Class, and bring income and great prestige back to D.C.," Trump wrote.
On Sunday he said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and architect Tom Fazio had “developed a plan” to revamp East Potomac Golf Links into a “World Class Championship Golf Course,” with work to begin November 15. The posts collided with a prior filing posture that, as characterized in the hearing fight, had pointed to “no agency action” on Trump’s golf-course plan. That gap fueled the court’s pressure on DOJ paper.
Breitbart reported Reyes’ deep skepticism that mass tree-cutting was unrelated to blocked redevelopment plans. She ordered a temporary halt to redevelopment until at least Oct. 26 after cutting began over a holiday weekend with little notice. Plaintiffs including the D.C. Preservation League argue the project would cause irreversible damage and violate the congressional act creating the park.
"There is no universe in which all of this coincidentally happened all at the same time."
Trump, in material carried in that account, said the Interior Department “wants to take a terrible and very unsafe golf course, and make it into a great, safe, and prestigious golf course,” adding that officials “have an absolute right to do so.”
The National Park Service removed roughly 430 trees over a weekend. Reyes answered with a temporary restraining order blocking further removals. The Interior Department said the cutting was part of a years-old plan to restore the course’s historic design and was unrelated to Trump’s proposed overhaul.
Trump has described a full renovation aimed at a “world-class, U.S. Open-caliber course.” Breitbart’s account said he announced plans to close the 106-year-old course for 15 months starting Nov. 15 and to start work immediately, even as the restraining order remained in force. Investigators and the court still have to sort what work, if any, can proceed while the order stands and what record supports the government’s timeline.
Fox’s reporting noted the tree removals did not violate a then-existing court order, even as the new TRO locked down further cutting. That distinction matters for sanctions talk and for any later contempt fight. Authorities have not publicly released a full accounting, in the materials at hand, of every approval step behind the weekend removal surge.
Woodward sought Reyes’ removal from the case, accusing bias and “open hostility.” The Oct. 12 hearing, where Reyes was described as “screaming” at administration attorneys, drove that request. He also called for release of court audio recordings.
Then-DOJ Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle had filed a formal judicial-misconduct complaint with the D.C. Circuit accusing Reyes of “hostile and egregious misconduct” and potential bias. The circuit’s chief judge dismissed the complaint and said a recusal motion was the proper avenue. The Monday record in the provided reporting does not show a final public ruling disposing of Woodward’s removal request at the hearing’s end.
Reyes’ history in other Trump administration matters also surfaced in the coverage. In a February 2025 hearing, she questioned an administration attorney about what Jesus Christ would say about policies excluding transgender people from homeless shelters. Conservatives read that episode, the golf-course clash, and the dismissed misconduct complaint as one pattern: a judge bringing open ideological heat into cases involving this administration.
Former federal prosecutor Abhishek Kambli wrote on X that high-level DOJ appointees sometimes sign contentious briefs as a leadership shield so heat falls on senior officials rather than line lawyers. “Regardless, it goes without saying that a decision such as this should not be something a judge is inquiring into,” he added.
Rachel Boulvard, vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute, wrote on X that “DOJ line attorneys increasingly do not sign briefs because of Dem law fare.” She said Democrats “have and continue to go after the bar licenses of young DOJ line attorneys who are simply executing on behalf of the department.”
Those points land on a live institutional question. If career lawyers fear license retaliation for ordinary advocacy, senior officials will keep putting their own names on paper. A judge demanding a roster of agreeing attorneys turns a filing custom into a pressure campaign. Woodward’s refusal drew that line in public.
The lawsuit first filed in February still turns on the renovation’s legality, the park’s governing statute, and what irreversible harm looks like on a working public course. Reyes’ TRO remains the immediate brake on further tree work. Trump’s November 15 start date and “IMMEDIATELY” language sit against that order.
Investigators and the parties will need to determine how the Burgum-Fazio plan interacts with National Park Service and Interior timelines, whether the weekend cutting advanced a historic restoration, a broader redesign, or both, and what discovery shows about notice to the public and to the court. No public results in the provided record settle those questions yet.
The court also has not, in these accounts, released the audio Trump says was blocked. Woodward’s push for the tapes keeps the transparency fight alive even after the signer demand died.
Separate video material tied to the Fox coverage captured Trump saying he will have Jack Nicklaus redesign Joint Base Andrews golf courses he called “really bad,” with “400-year-old grass.” That Andrews plan is distinct from the East Potomac litigation, but it shows the same presidential focus on federal golf facilities and rapid redesign.
By withdrawing the refile order, Reyes lowered the temperature on a collateral fight that risked overshadowing the merits. She did it only after a full-day grind and after DOJ leadership refused to comply on her terms. The restraining order, the bias allegations, and the renovation calendar remain.
Conservatives tracking lawfare see the episode as larger than fairways and greens. When a court probes who inside DOJ agreed with a brief, after years of license threats against line attorneys, the process itself becomes the punishment. Woodward’s stand, Trump’s public pressure, and the Monday reversal put that problem on the record.
Courts can restrain agencies. They cannot conscript a department’s internal signature practices into a loyalty test without inviting a fight over separation of powers and basic advocacy rights. The East Potomac case now returns the parties to trees, statutes, and a renovation plan the president still says will restore prestige to D.C.
When judges turn filing formalities into spectacle, elected branches push back, and the public gets a clear look at who will enforce limits on the robe.
