430 Trees Felled Over a Holiday Weekend: Judge Reyes Extends the Block, Orders Wischer and Bowron to Testify Oct. 19
UPDATE (Oct. 13, Tuesday): U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes (D.D.C.) extended her restraining order barring further tree-clearing at East Potomac Golf Links1 through Oct. 26, found the plaintiffs had "proven they will likely suffer irreparable harm absent injunctive relief," and imposed a standing condition: the government must give "three business days' written advance notice prior to making any irreparable modification" to the course. She ordered the two officials who haven't yet answered for the cuts — Greg Wischer, deputy chief of staff to Interior Secretary Burgum (from whom NPS Deputy Director Frank Lands says the tree-clearing directive came), and Jessica Bowron, acting NPS director — to testify at a hearing Monday, Oct. 19.
The Monday hearing (Oct. 12) had already produced the cycle's defining quotes. Reyes, who ordered the short-term stop and warned that "if that order is violated by two seconds, there are going to be contempt proceedings2": "What has happened has cost the government all of its credibility with me in this case." And on what the Oct. 19 testimony is for: "The questions go to whether or not I've been lied to. Whether I've been lied to in declarations about the plans, whether or not I've been lied to about the timing of things, and whether I've been lied to about what kind of notice the court was going to receive."
The chain of command as established in court: Superintendent Kevin Griess said he got the green light from Frank Lands; Lands — who joined the hearing from his car in a parking lot — said he got the directive from Wischer. Wischer was "not reachable to join the hearing" Monday despite Reyes' request.
The government's stated rationale — routine "deferred maintenance" under a 2019 NPS report, executed with a surge of 20–50 personnel tied to the administration's 250th-anniversary events — is viewed skeptically by plaintiffs: "the administration is using a preservation report as cover to begin tearing out the course it was written to save" (plaintiff Alex Dickson, via Democracy Forward). Democracy Forward's Skye Perryman: "What was really remarkable about the hearing yesterday is that the government did not appear to have a defense for its failure to notify the court."
What it means: The Oct. 19 hearing is now the test of whether the government's notice failure was chaos or evasion — and whether contempt follows. The pattern Reyes is probing (act first, notice last, over a holiday weekend) is the same act-first posture this topic has tracked at the Kennedy Center and the White House East Wing; her credibility finding is the sharpest judicial language yet on it.
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An instance of Controversial executive programs escape constitutional review simply by racing to completion. — The clearing was executed over a holiday weekend ahead of the notice a court required, and an injunction can only stop trees that are still standing. ↩︎
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An instance of The injunction now trails the deed it was meant to prevent. — The felling was executed over a holiday weekend before the required notice, leaving the judge to interrogate an accomplished act rather than prevent it. ↩︎