Ana C. Reyes held an evidentiary hearing on October 19, 2026, in the dispute over President Trump’s plan to replace a historic municipal golf course. She also ordered the government to explain by 8pm whether it still held the positions its lawyers took two days earlier.
Reyes hears three witnesses
Reyes heard from Gregory Wischer, Jessica Bowron and Kevin Griess. Wischer was deputy chief of staff of the Department of Interior, Bowron was the acting director of the National Parks Service, and Griess was the superintendent of National Mall and Memorial Parks.
From the bench, Reyes joked, “trust everyone's weekend was as relaxing as mine and my clerks.” She also said, “I don't know that i need to find bad faith,” while explaining why she was willing to go beyond the bare administrative record in what she described as an exceptional situation.
Government positions on Oct. 17
Two days before the hearing, government attorneys described the replacement plans as conceptual, nascent and preliminary. Reyes said that record mattered because she was deciding whether the case could be limited to the paperwork already filed or whether testimony would be needed from officials with direct knowledge.
She denied a government request to recuse herself the night before the hearing, then ordered Associate AG Stan Woodward to attend. That kept the government in front of the court as the judge pressed for a same-day explanation of whether its position had changed since the earlier filings.
Nov. 15 deadline dispute
The timing sharpened when President Trump said the existing course would close on Nov. 15 or earlier to make way for the replacement. That created a direct mismatch with the government’s earlier description of the plans and put the court on a fast track for answers the same day.
For readers following the case, the immediate next step was Reyes’s 8pm deadline for the government’s explanation. What she will do after hearing from the government is not yet set out in the record from the hearing.
