Trump Will Appeal His Go-Ahead

Donald Trump says his East Potomac golf project has the go-ahead. He would also like to appeal the decision that apparently gave it to him.

A grateful recipient of judicial approval does not usually immediately shop for a different judge’s answer. But this is a presidency with a vigorous commitment to accepting victory on its own terms, including when the paperwork says something else.

According to the Associated Press, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued a preliminary injunction Monday temporarily barring additional tree removal or damage at the public course. The administration must also provide ten days’ written notice before irreparable changes to the course’s forms or features while the case continues.

That is not a permanent ban on renovation or a final ruling on the merits. It is also not the legal equivalent of “looks great, carry on.”

Late Monday, Trump called the project approved, mocked the judge’s knowledge of golf-course architecture and said he would appeal. He subsequently repeated his plan to close the course on November 15 for a fifteen-month overhaul.

The architectural criticism is particularly convenient. If a court says you must follow a process, explain that the court has never designed a bunker. The next parking ticket can be contested on the grounds that the officer lacks an automotive engineering degree.

The issue is authority and irreversible action, not whether Reyes has a sufficiently imaginative opinion about fairways.

We covered the earlier contradiction between a provisional golf plan and permanent tree removal. That hearing ended without a new order. Monday’s injunction is a new legal development: the dispute now comes with explicit restrictions and a notice requirement.

Those procedural words are doing something useful. Notice creates a chance to contest an irreversible change before the irreversible part happens. A promise of eventual litigation is less comforting when the thing being litigated has already been hauled away.

The government has challenged Reyes’s impartiality and sought her recusal; she rejected that request. It can contest her ruling through the courts. That is different from translating the ruling into a compliment before the appeal has even done its work.

There is still a case to resolve. Nobody needs to pretend the judge has decided its final outcome.

But a temporary restriction is not permission wearing an unfriendly font. If the president wants to appeal, he can start by admitting there is something he did not get.