A federal judge in Washington said on Saturday, November 7, that she intends to appoint a former top federal prosecutor from President Donald Trump's own first administration to investigate whether government lawyers and officials misled her in the legal fight over Trump's planned renovation of the historic East Potomac Golf Links, the public golf course on the Potomac River in the nation's capital.

Source: Reuters

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said she intends to name Jessie Liu — who served as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia from 2017 to 2020 — as a special master to examine the conduct of lawyers at the Department of Justice and officials at the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service during the case, the Associated Press reported. The inquiry will look at whether they violated ethics rules or misled the court. No finding of wrongdoing has been made against any official or lawyer.

Source: Associated Press

The step announced Saturday is a new development in a confrontation that became public a week earlier: at a hearing on October 30, Reyes had already ordered a formal ethics probe and expressed concern that government attorneys had misrepresented the administration's intention to press ahead with the renovation despite her temporary order blocking the project, Reuters reported.

How a case about golf became a case about candour

The confrontation built up over the president's own social media posts. Beginning on October 18, Trump posted repeatedly on Truth Social indicating that renovation plans for the course were real and that construction was expected to begin on November 15, with the park closed for 15 months while work goes on. In hearing after hearing, administration officials could not confirm the existence of those plans under questioning from the judge, and the Justice Department asked the court to disregard the president's statements. The department finally filed notice on October 28 that the plans were real, the AP reported.

"Rarely, if ever, has the United States Department of Justice urged a federal court not to believe the sitting president," Reyes said at an earlier hearing, in remarks reported by Reuters. "This started as a case about golf," she added. "But it has become much more." Reyes, who was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden, had earlier in the case rejected numerous motions from the plaintiffs, saying she trusted the government attorneys, the AP noted.

Trees are the other flashpoint. Hundreds of trees were cut down on the course early last month, and Reyes wants to know whether officials were truthful about the steps they took, including the tree-cutting. An injunction she issued last month temporarily bars the government from removing or damaging any additional trees on the course, and requires the administration to give 10 days' notice in writing before making any "irreparable modification" to any forms or features of the course while the lawsuit is active.

Who Jessie Liu is

Liu is an unusual choice for the role: she was Washington's chief federal prosecutor during Trump's first term, in the same office where she had earlier served as an assistant U.S. attorney. As U.S. attorney she oversaw the criminal case against Trump's longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone, as well as matters referred to her office by then-special counsel Robert Mueller during his investigation into possible ties between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia. Trump later nominated her to be associate attorney general, the Justice Department's third-highest job, but she withdrew after opposition on the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee. After a period in private practice, she and two other former prosecutors launched their own law firm, Liu Shur Kravis LLP, in April, Reuters reported.

The Interior Department responded to Saturday's step with a statement, reported by Reuters, calling Reyes a "far Left activist judge" who would "stop at nothing to prevent President Donald Trump's efforts to beautify our nation's capital." That is the department's characterisation of the judge; the court has made no finding about its own impartiality, and the ethics inquiry concerns the conduct of government lawyers and officials, not the judge.

The course, the park and the lawsuit

The underlying lawsuit was filed in February by the DC Preservation League and two golfers. It asserts — as an allegation the court has not yet decided — that the planned reconstruction of East Potomac Park, including the golf course, violates environmental laws and a congressional preservation act. Preservationists and local golfers say they fear the project could change the identity of one of Washington's most affordable public courses and remove a public place to play; the administration describes its plan as building a "world class, championship-level golf course that is capable of hosting major events."

East Potomac Golf Links sits in East Potomac Park, on a narrow peninsula in the Potomac River south of the National Mall. Trump's plan to transform the links is part of a broader effort to leave his architectural stamp on Washington, Reuters reported. The administration plans to close the course and the park on November 15 to begin the work.

David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told the AP that a judge initiating a formal investigation into the conduct of a trial's participants "can be a precursor to holding someone in contempt of court." He said the move also reflects "the difficulty she had in determining who initiated the tree-cutting in defiance of the assurances DOJ provided," adding that the judge wants a special master to narrow the issues instead of holding long, complex hearings herself.

What happens next

Both sides have until Friday, November 13, to respond in writing to the judge's plan to appoint Liu, and the next hearing in the dispute is scheduled for the same day. Under the judge's order, any response by the government will be without prejudice to an argument that the court should not conduct an ethics inquiry at all; if the court does appoint Liu, it will enter a detailed order setting out her task. The plaintiffs have separately asked Reyes to temporarily block the planned November 15 closure, two days after that hearing — so the coming week will decide both who investigates the government's conduct and whether the bulldozers wait.