By Jan Wolfe and David Thomas
WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Saturday ordered that a riverside public park in Washington must remain open for now, rather than being closed for renovations sought by US President Donald Trump.
It is the latest setback for Trump's plan to turn East Potomac Park into a championship-level course geared toward professional golfers.
In a 30-page decision, US District Judge Ana Reyes temporarily blocked the federal government from moving forward with a plan
that would have closed the area on Sunday. Trump said in an October 18 social media post that the closure would last 15 months and would transform the park's golf offerings into "one of the Best and Most Spectacular Golf Courses anywhere in the World."
Reyes ruled that the Trump administration's stated reasons for closing the park were "pretextual" and that the government violated at least two federal laws "to meet an arbitrary deadline."
"The government proposes to close a historic park, daily enjoyed by Washingtonians of all stripes, indefinitely," Reyes wrote.
Although Reyes ordered that the park — near the Jefferson Memorial, 2 miles (3 km) south of the White House — remain open, the Trump administration does not have to maintain golf operations at the site, the judge wrote. But the government "cannot use the absence of golf operations as a reason to exclude the public," she added.
The ruling by Reyes, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden and whom Trump has called a "lunatic," is the latest instance of the federal judiciary pushing back against Trump's sweeping efforts to redesign the nation's capital through major construction projects.
The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the DC Preservation League, a historic preservation group that says Trump's plan to redevelop the park violates various federal regulations and statutes. The group's lawyers earlier won a ruling from Reyes that blocked the National Park Service, part of the Interior Department, from cutting down trees at the park or making other irreversible modifications without advance notice.
Democracy Forward, which is representing the preservation league and two local residents in the case, said in a statement it was grateful that Reyes stopped "another one of the president’s vanity projects."
The group's senior legal adviser, Catherine Carroll, said: "The administration’s inexplicable drive to destroy East Potomac Park would have taken away a treasured park that could never be replaced."
The Interior Department, Justice Department and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuit has produced several heated confrontations between Reyes and Justice Department lawyers. The judge said last month that the government's removal of hundreds of trees from the course and failure to tell the preservation group about the work "has cost the government all of its credibility" in the case.
Reyes has ordered an ethics investigation into whether government lawyers have repeatedly misled her about the timeline for the park's closure.
The Justice Department has accused Reyes of overstepping her authority and inappropriately belittling government lawyers. It demanded her recusal from the case, a request she denied.
Trump, who owns golf courses globally, has focused on the East Potomac Park renovations as part of his larger ambition to leave an architectural legacy across Washington.
The park has three golf courses totaling 36 holes, a miniature golf course and a paved loop popular with cyclists and runners. The proposed redesign would turn the area into a single 18-hole championship course that Trump has said could hold world-class events, such as the US Open and the Ryder Cup, while remaining open to the public.
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe and David Thomas; Additional writing by David Thomas; Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Sergio Non and William Mallard)
