CNN’s Elie Honig Says Trump Golf Course Announcement Is ‘Exactly Contrary’ to What His Lawyers Told Court

President Donald Trump is directly contradicting his own Justice Department lawyers over the proposed revamp of a public D.C. golf course — and really ticking off the judge in the process, according to CNN’s Elie Honig.

Trump has said that he’ll begin restoration of the D.C. Municipal golf course in November, but workers have already begun knocking down hundreds of trees despite U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes blocking them from doing so.

“This judge is furious at the government,” Honig said Monday. “And by the way, Donald Trump’s announcement that he expected to do this renovation in November is exactly contrary to what his lawyers have been saying in court, which is that no plan for a full renovation is imminent.”

Honig continued:

This judge is furious at the Justice Department because in prior weeks, she said, “Look, I’m not going to issue an official order, but if you start doing anything that’s irreversible at this golf course, I need to know about it in advance.” And the Justice Department, on the Friday evening before Columbus Day weekend, said, “Judge, we may be doing something over this weekend,” and then within a day, had cut down 400 trees. The judge was furious. She said, “I trusted you. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and you abused it.” And now she has the parties coming back into court today. She has now put an official restraint on them. And so we’ll see if the judge clearly she has lost all faith in the Justice Department, and she’s not going to give them the benefit of the doubt moving forward.

Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported Monday morning that there were an “absurd number of lawyers — for plaintiffs and DOJ” all “crammed into Judge Reyes’ courtroom for a hearing on the effort by President Trump to convert East Potomac golf course into a PGA-level championship course.”

Also Monday morning, Trump insulted the judge on Truth Social, calling her “a crazed lunatic whose courthouse tapes will reveal, may be insane?”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

Jason Cohen contributed to this report.

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