A court battle over an island in the middle of the Potomac River has evolved over the past two weeks into a fight over the justice system itself. As a new hearing began on Friday, Judge Ana Reyes asked the Justice Department whether there was anything it needed to "correct" on the record, after the government was caught ignoring the judge's previous orders.

The dispute centers on Hains Point, the island that is home to the public East Potomac Golf Course, along with a biking and walking trail and other parks. The judge had told the government in the months before that it had to notify the court before doing anything major to the island, and that only routine maintenance was allowed.

On Friday, Oct. 9, at 4:55 p.m., President Donald Trump's administration told a federal judge it would cut down a number of trees previously protected by a court order. The New York Times reported that the administration planned to remove more than 500 trees. On Oct. 12, the federal court brought the White House into court after a large number of cherry blossom trees on Hains Point had been chopped down, and in that hearing it was revealed that 430 of those 500 trees had already been cut.

The judge was incensed. She said she had given the White House every ounce of good faith, and that she had assumed everything the government said was trustworthy — only to see that trust abused.

By Friday, Oct. 30, after a restraining order and a court intervention that had taken several days, Judge Reyes opened the hearing by reading aloud Rule 3.3 of the rules of professional conduct, which deals specifically with "candor to the tribunal." The exchange placed both compliance with the court's orders and the accuracy of the government's representations before the judge at the center of the hearing.

According to courts and justice reporter Chris Geidner, who publishes the Law Dork newsletter on Substack, Reyes then asked Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. whether there were any material misrepresentations made by the DOJ or the DOI that he wanted to correct.

Woodward answered, "Not to my knowledge."

The hearing also included agency counsel for the Department of the Interior, who was asked whether Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had been involved in the golf course plans. The attorney replied that there is "a wide range of meanings" of "been involved."

Geidner suggested that was not a smart answer to give. "He's new to Reyes's courtroom, I suspect," the reporter wrote on BlueSky. "This is not going well, folks."

As it turned out, Burgum had been in two meetings where the golf course was discussed. Woodward, for his part, brought his own legal counsel so that he could be sworn in.

At issue in recent hearings has been a posting spree by Trump, who has made a series of accusations and declarations about the golf course that are in direct contrast to what is being said in court. Several hearings have centered on those posts, and Friday's began with the same questions, this time about new posts. That means the court's examination of the government's account is continuing alongside its review of the statements being made publicly about the project.