Biden judge drops DOJ signer demand after marathon hearing on Trump golf plans

A Biden-appointed judge abruptly withdrew her order forcing DOJ attorneys to identify a brief’s signers after a nearly seven-hour showdown over President Trump’s D.C. golf plans.

Fox News reported that U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes ended Monday’s marathon session by abandoning the demand she had pressed for hours. The fight centers on tree removals at East Potomac Golf Links, a federally owned course in Washington, D.C., and the Trump administration’s plan to rebuild it into a top-tier facility.

Reyes, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2023, had ordered Justice Department lawyers to refile a Sunday brief with the names of everyone who would stand behind it. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. had signed the filing alone. By the close of the nearly seven-hour hearing, she reversed course.

“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 exchange laid bare a raw collision between a federal judge and the Trump Justice Department over control of public land, courtroom procedure, and who gets held responsible for hard-edged filings.

Woodward refused the courtroom loyalty test

Woodward, the department’s No. 3 official, sought Reyes’s removal from the case and accused her of bias and “open hostility.” During the hearing she invoked Rule 11, the federal rule that requires lawyers to stand behind the factual basis of their filings and opens the door to sanctions if they do not.

She told the DOJ lawyers to raise their hands if they would sign the brief. She ordered them to the podium. She set a 3 p.m. deadline, then pushed it to noon Tuesday. Woodward called the raise-your-hand demand “not an appropriate request.” The other attorneys stood with him. Reyes finally dropped the whole demand.

Former federal prosecutor Abhishek Kambli explained on X why senior officials often put their own names on contentious papers.

“For those wondering, a common reason high level DOJ appointees sometimes signs briefs boils down to good leadership. If there is something that is likely to be contentious with a judge, a DOJ leader signs their name on the brief so that any issues someone has with the brief is directed at them rather than lower level attorneys. Regardless, it goes without saying that a decision such as this should not be something a judge is inquiring into.”

Rachel Boulvard, vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute, pointed to a different pressure. Line attorneys have grown wary of signing their names because Democratic-aligned lawfare campaigns target young lawyers’ bar licenses for simply carrying out department policy.

“DOJ line attorneys increasingly do not sign briefs because of Dem law fare. Dems have and continue to go after the bar licenses of young DOJ line attorneys who are simply executing on behalf of the department.”

That pattern of targeted pressure on career lawyers has appeared in other fights where Biden-appointed judges have blocked Trump DOJ initiatives on immigration enforcement and local noncooperation policies.

Four hundred thirty trees and a restraining order

The immediate dispute began earlier this month when the National Park Service cut down roughly 430 trees at East Potomac Golf Links over a weekend. Reyes responded with a temporary restraining order that bars further removals.

The Interior Department said the work belonged to a years-old plan to restore the course’s historic design and had nothing to do with Trump’s proposed overhaul. Trump has described a far more ambitious project: turning the links into a “world-class, U.S. Open-caliber course” that would create income and prestige for the capital.

On Sunday he posted that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and architect Tom Fazio had “developed a plan” for a “World Class Championship Golf Course,” with work set to begin November 15. Hours before Monday’s hearing he went further on Truth Social.

“The judge on the case is a crazed lunatic whose courthouse tapes will reveal, may be insane? The tapes have been blocked from usage by the judge.”

Trump added that 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.”

Reyes had previously told the government there was “no agency action” tied to Trump’s golf plans. His public posts undercut that claim and triggered her demand for a new filing by 8 p.m. Sunday. Woodward’s brief answered. Only his signature appeared on it.

Prior clashes already filled the record

Monday was not the first collision. On Oct. 12, Reyes was described as screaming at administration attorneys. That session prompted Woodward’s formal request to take her off the case. In a February 2025 hearing on separate litigation, she asked a Trump administration lawyer what Jesus Christ would say about policies that exclude transgender people from homeless shelters.

Then-DOJ Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle earlier filed a judicial-misconduct complaint accusing Reyes of “hostile and egregious misconduct” and potential bias in transgender military litigation. The D.C. Circuit’s chief judge later dismissed the complaint and said a recusal motion was the proper route. Woodward has now taken that route.

Similar tensions between the White House and the bench have surfaced when the administration has challenged judicial orders on press credentials and access inside federal facilities.

The East Potomac lawsuit itself was first filed in February. The course sits on federal land with clear views of the Washington Monument. Taxpayers own it. The National Park Service manages it. The president has directed a renovation. A single district judge has frozen part of the work and spent the better part of a day pressing Justice Department lawyers to put their personal names on a brief their boss already signed.

Federal land still belongs to the executive branch

Nothing in the hearing changed the basic chain of command. The Interior Department and the Park Service answer to the president. Reyes can police the courtroom and issue temporary orders. She does not run the National Park Service. When she turned a filing dispute into a public hand-raising exercise, she invited the very confrontation that followed.

Other recent rulings show the same fault line. A Biden-appointed judge struck down a multi-country visa freeze and branded the policy “Orwellian,” inserting the court deep into core immigration decisions. Separate panels have produced mixed results, including moments when Biden-appointed judges sided with Trump administration positions on temporary protected status. The pattern is inconsistency dressed up as principle.

Partisan conduct by judges has drawn higher-court attention before. The Supreme Court rejected a Pennsylvania judge’s appeal over open pro-Biden social-media activity, a reminder that the bench is not a free-fire zone for political messaging.

Reyes still has the temporary restraining order in place. Woodward’s removal request remains on the table. Court audio that Trump and Woodward want released stays blocked by the judge’s own order. The trees are already gone. The larger renovation fight is just getting started.

Federal judges hold enormous power over the daily business of government. When that power is used to stage loyalty theater against Justice Department lawyers carrying out a president’s lawful directives on federal property, the public is entitled to notice, and to a court that knows the difference between judging a case and running the executive branch.