# East Potomac Golf Links Redesign [[Donald Trump]]'s project to redesign the publicly owned golf course in **East Potomac Park**, on National Park Service land in Washington, D.C. As of late August 2026 it is being carried out **ahead of the federal review process that is supposed to authorize it**, and in apparent tension with a federal judge's instruction. ## The court posture Opponents sued to stop the redesign. The litigation produced two relevant moments: - **May 2026** — U.S. District Judge [[Ana Reyes]] cautioned the government against removing **more than ten trees** from the property without first raising it with the court. - **2 July 2026** — Reyes **declined to block the project**, but only after government lawyers assured her that no construction would move forward without completing the required federal approval process. Reyes did say she would not stop routine maintenance. ## What happened Rick Maese of the *Washington Post* reported on **28 August 2026** that an informal count found **more than sixty trees** removed in recent weeks — some at the perimeter and parking lot, but others from playing corridors on the Blue, Red and White courses. Among them was **a cherry tree near the 14th green of the Blue course**. The administration's position is that this is the routine maintenance the judge permitted. A spokesperson for the [[Department of the Interior]] said: "Arborists are doing routine maintenance at East Potomac Park with selective removal of hazard trees, non-native invasive trees, and declining and dying trees that cannot be brought back to good health through any degree of intervention." Trump has said the makeover begins **1 September 2026**. As of Maese's reporting the administration had released **no final design, no construction schedule and no estimated cost**, had apparently conducted **neither an environmental nor a historic-preservation review**, and had not said how the work would affect public access to the three courses or to the popular riverside recreation path. ## Why it matters for the KB **1. It is the maintenance exception swallowing the order.** The judge drew a line at ten trees and carved out routine maintenance. Sixty-plus trees came down, characterized as maintenance. Whether or not that survives challenge, the *mechanism* — a narrow exception used at a scale that moots the rule, with the review process still incomplete — is the pattern this vault tracks under executive-branch compliance, and it is the same shape as [[Big Bend National Park Border Wall]] and [[National Park Service Funds Diversion]]. **2. Public land, private preference.** The course is publicly owned and publicly used. The redesign is a presidential enthusiasm. The vault files the general case under [[LIV Golf at Trump Properties]] — golf as the site where this president's personal and official interests are least separable. **3. The cherry tree.** [[Heather Cox Richardson]] opened her 30 August 2026 letter with Parson Weems's invented story of young George Washington, the hatchet and the cherry tree — a fable written in 1806 precisely to establish truth-telling as the quality citizens should demand in a leader. One of the trees cut down at East Potomac was a cherry tree, while the government called the cutting routine. The coincidence is what made the story travel. ## See Also - [[Ana Reyes]] — the presiding judge - [[Department of the Interior]] · [[National Park Service]] — the land managers - [[Big Bend National Park Border Wall]] — the closest structural analogue - [[National Park Service Funds Diversion]] — parks money redirected to presidential priorities - [[LIV Golf at Trump Properties]] — the golf-and-office nexus - [[Antiquities Act]] — the public-lands protective authority