Judge Orders Ethics Inquiry into Trump Administration Lawyers Over DC Golf Course Case

For more than two hours on Friday, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. sat before US District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington while she set his testimony beside the president's own words. The comparison ended with the judge announcing a "formal inquiry" into whether government lawyers misled the court about plans for the East Potomac Golf Links, a historic public course in the capital.

Reyes said she will appoint a special master to examine whether officials withheld information or made misleading assertions about the project. The inquiry will not decide whether government lawyers committed misconduct. Its narrower task is to determine whether their conduct breached professional or ethical obligations. The step escalates a legal fight over President Donald Trump's efforts to reshape the capital.

The trouble began with a gap between what the president said publicly and what the government told the judge. Earlier this month, Trump posted on Truth Social that the course would close for 15 months, beginning November 15, for a major redevelopment. Yet officials from several agencies, including the Interior Department, the Justice Department and the National Park Service, had earlier been unable to confirm to Reyes that any plans existed, or what they covered, when she questioned them.

During Friday's hearing, Reyes repeatedly pressed Woodward on those contradictions. She also asked whether a National Park Service official had been told to leave details out of a court declaration.

The court's concern has a history. Earlier this year, Reyes ordered the government to give advance notice of any substantive construction work at the site. The dispute sharpened anyway when more than 400 trees were removed from the golf course earlier this month. Reyes responded by extending her injunction against any further "irreversible" changes to the site.

Then came Wednesday. The Justice Department told the court that the National Park Service would submit a design by golf course architect Tom Fazio to the National Capital Planning Commission on Friday. Until then, Justice Department lawyers had declined to acknowledge any plans for the course. Trump, for his part, had already posted about commissioning Fazio "to build a World Class Championship Golf Course" on the park site, which currently includes biking and walking paths.

The lawsuit was filed in February by the DC Preservation League, which argues the redevelopment could violate environmental protections and damage a historically significant public space.

The golf course is one of two courtroom fights over Trump's plans for Washington on Friday. Another federal judge was due to hear a separate challenge to the White House's proposed 75-metre (250-foot) memorial arch near Arlington National Cemetery. Both cases raise broader questions about the limits of presidential authority over federal land and public monuments.

David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told The Associated Press the cases reflect a shift in how the administration treats legal limits. In his telling, there was once an assumption that officials would try to act legally; now, he said, the approach is that if you think the federal courts can't stop you, you can break the law.

What to watch next is who the special master is, what the inquiry finds about the government's statements, and how any findings bear on the preservation league's suit and on the arch challenge.