DC District Court Judge Ana Reyes should have known better. After what happened with Chief Judge James Boasberg, it was clear that the Trump administration was unconcerned about ignoring the orders of the court. More importantly for a judge, it was clear that the AUSAs coming before the court could not be trusted, either to tell the truth or to abide by the judge’s directions. Sure, this never rarely happened before, but it was most assuredly happening now.
And yet, Judge Reyes wanted to believe that the government wouldn’t burn her. And then the government burned her.
A federal judge on Monday excoriated the Trump administration for ripping up hundreds of mature trees at a Washington golf course over the holiday weekend, even though she had directed officials to disclose any major changes before work was started.
In an explosive, four-hour emergency hearing, Judge Ana C. Reyes of the Federal District Court in Washington ordered a one-day halt to any more tree removal at East Potomac Golf Links, and said she would continue proceedings on Tuesday.
The emergency hearing was the product of Judge Reyes’ telling the government not to take any significant action with regard to the municipal golf course without providing advance notice to the court. At 4:55 pm on the Friday of a holiday weekend, notice was provided that the government would be taking some trees down. At the crack of dawn, contractors started cutting down trees. Big trees. Old trees. Lots of trees. By the end of the day, about 400 of 529 trees were gone.
An emergency application was filed and the hearing held Monday, Columbus Day, morning. Judge Reyes was not amused.
“I am thoroughly unamused right now,” Judge Reyes said, appearing remotely from Istanbul, where she had been traveling. She raised her voice at several points to near shouting level.
“What has happened has cost the government all of its credibility with me in this case,” she said, before listing all of the times she had directed the government to alert her to major alterations.
On the surface, the hearing was about tree removal. Full disclosure, I am a huge tree lover and it pains me when mature trees are unnecessarily destroyed. This wanton destruction of trees is, in itself, a travesty as far as I’m concerned. But even though the trees matter greatly, that wasn’t really the gravamen of the judge’s fury.
The Monday morning hearing was technically to address the tree removal, but Judge Reyes made clear that her larger concern was the possibility that the Trump administration had flouted her instructions. Since Mr. Trump returned to office last year, judges have repeatedly been forced to interrogate whether the government has complied with orders across a variety of cases.
Possibility? It’s hard to imagine a stronger slap in the face than what the government delivered here. Of course, the problem is that Judge Reyes didn’t reduce her multiple warnings to a clear, concise order, directing the government not to remove trees, so how would the government possibly know that what it was doing was contrary to the court’s directions (note, directions, not order)?
And if this ridiculous rationale isn’t clear enough, the paragon of propriety, Stephen Miller, brought the insult home.
I missed the part of the Constitutional Convention that put federal judges in charge of golf course maintenance. The Left is endlessly enraged that, after allowing DC to decay for decades, the Trump Administration is making it safe, clean and beautiful.
— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) October 12, 2026
While it’s easy to dismiss Miller’s inane characterization of this matter as “golf course maintenance,” it reflects a far more nefarious purpose of undermining and trivializing the authority of the judiciary to fulfill its function. After all, turn it all into a silly joke and who cares that the Trump administration gives judges like Reyes the bird?
Obviously, the fallen trees can’t be righted again. They’re dead. They’re gone. But the fact that the government did this despite Judge Reyes’ direction remains. What, if anything, should the courts do about it? If a district judge holds the administration in contempt, so what? Who’s going to sit in the cell? And even so, will the Supremes back up their baby brethren or hang them out to dry on the shadow docket? Even if they did, which member of the Executive Branch will enforce the order when the president tells them to stand back and stand by?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments. . . .” Federalist 78 (1788) by Alexander Hamilton.
He was responding to Brutus XV claiming the judiciary would be too powerful and accidentally made one of the anti-feds favorite critiques of the Constitution. The anti-feds had nothing nice to say about the executive which they quickly denigrated as monarchical in all but name. They also mocked heavily their rivals’ admiration of the precious checks and balances of the federalists which they noted rightly wouldn’t work when the Executive controls the military. Patrick Henry’s June 5, 1788 speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention is the best on these issues I’ve read on that to this point as far as rhetoric if not substance.
The esteemed scholar Stephen Miller is right in a sense that the judiciary cannot command the executive at all. The judiciary is in charge of nothing. They render judgments only. Compliance by the Executive is voluntary. Of course, he’s throwing out all the ink our founders spilled about our Republic requiring virtuous citizens to function, among a thousand layers of nuance, by making such a reductive and stupid statement. Ask what they meant by virtue and be prepared to recognize what we lack.
Even more horror sets in when one looks to those apparent checks on Executive power touted by the federalists. Time and entropy withered those away. Of course the President can’t control the military except when Congress declares war. Everyone knew that until it wasn’t true anymore. Fucking Truman. Don’t worry, the leg can impeach a rogue president. I have nothing but giggles for that one. And now the habit of presidents being good boys and doing as the judiciary says is gone too.
Worse, our society has morphed and we’ve moved on since the Enlightenment project failed. The founders could not have dreamed of the what the future held for their experiment. Providence knows what they would say now; none of us do. Pulp up the trees and give the court some more paper to write strongly worded orders on. It seems a fitting fate for them.