Main: An aerial shot shows West Potomac Park (court exhibit). Inset left: Senior U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan (U.S. District Court). Inset right: President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally for Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin).
A weekend frenzy over mass tree removal at a golf course in Washington, D.C., led to an unusual showdown between a high-ranking DOJ attorney and a federal judge who declined to step aside from the case and refused to turn a blind eye to President Donald Trump's social media posts about his plans for East Potomac Park.
Now, a different judge on the same court is weighing whether to block the Trump administration from constructing the "National Garden of American Heroes" at West Potomac Park.
A familiar face in Trump-related legal battles both former and current, Senior U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan has been asked to "preliminarily enjoin or stay" the government's implementation of the so-called "West Potomac Plan," just like U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes was urged to block the administration, before it's too late, from transforming East Potomac Park's "historic, recreational-style design" into a "championship-style venue for professional tournaments."
Like the D.C. Preservation League, the National Parks Conservation Association claims to have standing because the administration's adoption of a plan amounts to a "final agency action." Also similar to the golf course case, the administration claims that the work on site has "nothing to do with" a larger plan.
Reyes repeatedly emphasized that she did "not want to be the overseer of Parks and Rec" and did not want the plaintiffs coming to her whenever the government engaged in "routine" tree maintenance at East Potomac Park. Then hundreds of trees were felled on a holiday weekend on short notice, leading Reyes to say that "what has happened has cost the government all of its credibility with me in this case."
The government moved to disqualify the Joe Biden-appointed jurist after that hearing, claiming that she "allowed her disdain for the Trump Administration to influence how hearings unfold, and systematically disregarded basic separation of powers principles and Article III constraints on judicial authority" when she scolded DOJ attorneys for doing their "absolute worst."
Reyes quickly rejected the motion, and on Monday she demanded answers from Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, not believing that the tree removal and the golf course overhaul were unrelated.
Woodward represented that the tree removal was not "final agency action" but instead was about ensuring compliance with a 2019 Cultural Landscape Report, consistent with the testimony of National Mall and Memorial Parks Superintendent Kevin Griess and National Park Service Deputy Director for Operations Frank Lands.
The judge, in turn, signaled she might block additional tree removal from taking place, but it remains an open question whether any of it will matter for purposes of standing to challenge the overarching plan.
Sullivan was assigned to the National Parks Conservation Association's lawsuit in mid-June, before the U.S. Supreme Court allowed construction of Trump's ballroom to move forward.
The plaintiff in that case said the Trump administration's "disregard for legal requirements" was "part of the same playbook the administration has used to pursue other recent vanity projects," referencing Trump's teardown of the East Wing of the White House to build the ballroom, the "paving over" of the Rose Garden and the "unlawful[] emblazoning his name on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (until ordered otherwise by a court)."
"At every turn, the President and his administration have shirked congressionally required procedures, cut the public and groups with relevant expertise out of their renovation plans, and obfuscated the source of funding for these projects," the complaint said.
By mid-September, after the ballroom ruling, the plaintiffs feared that they "apparently would not suffer Article III injury until construction of the garden complex is substantially or entirely complete."
"Of course, at that point, the government is likely to argue—as it has in other litigation—that the project is too far along for Plaintiffs' injuries to be redressed," said a filing in support of a preliminary injunction.
To bolster its case, the group observed that Uzbek gazebos, or aywans, were under construction at the site.
"In a meet-and-confer, counsel for Defendants represented that the Uzbek gazebos currently under construction are not part of the Garden of American Heroes. That explanation conflicts with the understanding of the Uzbekistan ambassador, who said his country had gifted the gazebos as 'part of the Garden of American Heroes,'" the filing said.
As recently as Oct. 13, a reply from the plaintiff again urged Sullivan to "prevent irreparable injury before it occurs."
"Defendants still do not dispute that the West Potomac Plan is illegal. Instead, their defense boils down to the repeated assertion that they are not 'currently building' the National Garden of American Heroes," court documents said. "Plaintiffs have demonstrated imminent, irreparable harm from the adoption and implementation of the West Potomac Plan, regardless of whether the Court credits Defendants' assertions that construction of the garden complex has not begun. Preliminary relief is necessary to forestall those harms now, rather than at some future, unidentified point in time when Defendants can claim it is too late to redress Plaintiffs' injuries."