Lawsuit Says Trump DOJ Playbook Targets President’s Court Foes

After President Donald Trump demolished the White House East Wing to make way for a ballroom, two golfers and a historic preservation organization accused his administration of “illegally dump[ing] toxic debris” at East Potomac Golf Course in an effort to rapidly and unlawfully transform it into a “championship-style course.”

In an amended and supplemental complaint filed Friday, the D.C. Preservation League, Dave Roberts and Alex Dickson alleged that the Department of the Interior, Secretary Doug Burgum and the National Park Service had “adopted and began implementing the Washington National plan” by the end of 2025. They argued that the plan threatens “the destruction of a cultural landscape” preserved in accordance with its historic design for more than a century.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes previously said she had “received countless emails and voicemails” from people upset about the administration’s removal of trees at the golf course, including a cherry tree. The plaintiffs were among those raising concerns, arguing that the tree removal indicated a broader redevelopment effort rather than routine maintenance.

The plaintiffs are asking Reyes to require the Trump administration to notify the court and the plaintiffs within 24 hours of either completing or abandoning specified legal compliance steps before beginning the East Potomac Golf Course overhaul.

As Burgum and the White House have referred to Trump as the “builder-in-chief,” multiple lawsuits have sought to block various projects from proceeding based on alleged harms.

Vietnam War veterans who sued to block construction of a “Great Triumphal Arch” at Memorial Circle recently persuaded a judge to require 48 hours’ notice before construction begins. The Kennedy Center’s future remains unsettled, while another judge imposed a 30-day notice requirement before any “demolition.”

The Justice Department has argued that Reyes cannot block the golf course project because there is no “final agency action.” The department also contends that the plaintiffs lack standing to sue based on “offense, disagreement, or distaste” following the Supreme Court’s decision involving the ballroom.

Reyes declined to immediately impose a similar notice requirement, but she permitted the plaintiffs to revise their “outdated” complaint in an effort to establish standing.

On Friday, attorneys Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen, representing the D.C. Preservation League, sought to do so by emphasizing the alleged environmental consequences of storing and dumping “toxic debris.”

The complaint states that the defendants’ “adoption and implementation of the Washington National plan” constitutes final agency action reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act. It makes the same claim about the “dumping and storage of dirt and debris from the East Wing destruction project,” alleging violations of the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.

The plaintiffs described the alleged harm as “ongoing concrete injuries” and urged Reyes to intervene before the damage becomes irreversible.

When Chief Justice John Roberts dissented from the Supreme Court’s decision in the ballroom case and said the project was “likely unlawful,” he raised specific questions about how the ruling could affect environmental law.

“And if a standalone concrete and particularized aesthetic injury can be recast as mere offense, what made the environmental plaintiffs with standing in our prior cases different from [architectural historian Alison] Hoagland?” Roberts wrote. “What saved their aesthetic injuries from being classed as mere distaste for the actions of government or private industry?”

The post-Trump DOJ strategy for defeating the president’s challengers in court appears to be fully underway for the “builder-in-chief,” the lawsuit says.