Judge to appoint special master to probe whether Trump lawyers misled her over golf course

A federal judge has said she intends to appoint a former top federal prosecutor as special master over the renovation of a historic public golf course in Washington DC. The investigation will examine whether lawyers and officials of the Trump administration purposely misled her.

Jessie Liu, who served as US attorney for the District of Columbia during Donald Trump's first term, will examine whether officials with the interior department and the National Park Service and attorneys with the Department of Justice violated ethics or misled US district judge Ana Reyes.

The case began with a lawsuit in February by the DC Preservation League and two golfers. It challenges the renovation of the East Potomac golf course along the Potomac River.

The Republican administration plans to close the East Potomac golf course and park on 15 November, intending to build what it has called a world-class, championship-level golf course capable of hosting major events.

An injunction issued by Reyes last month temporarily bars the government from removing or damaging any additional trees on the course while the lawsuit is active. The administration was ordered to give 10 days' notice in writing before making any irreparable modification to the course.

Reyes wants to know whether federal officials lied about the extent of renovation plans during prior months of hearings. She also wants to know about various steps they took, including cutting down hundreds of trees early last month.

During a hearing on 30 October, she announced that she was starting a formal investigation into the government's conduct. Earlier in the case, she had rejected numerous motions from the plaintiffs to step in, saying she trusted the government attorneys.

Reyes is now giving each side a chance to be heard on her plan to name Liu as special master. They must do so in writing by Friday, when the next court hearing in the dispute is scheduled.

As the city's then chief federal prosecutor, Liu oversaw some of the matters referred to her office by then-special counsel Robert Mueller. That investigation examined alleged ties between Trump's 2016 election campaign and Russia.

Trump later nominated her to be associate attorney general. She withdrew from consideration after running into opposition on the Republican-led Senate judiciary committee because of her past membership in a lawyers' group that had supported abortion rights.

David Super, a law professor at the Georgetown University law center, said the initiation of a formal investigation by a judge to look into the conduct of a trial's participants can be a precursor to holding someone in contempt of court.

Super said it also reflects the difficulty she had in determining who initiated the tree-cutting in defiance of the assurances the Department of Justice provided. She does not have the time to keep holding long, complex hearings, so she wants a special master to narrow the issues.

Meanwhile, on Saturday afternoon, Trump posted a long message on his social media platform declaring that he was ordering the justice department immediately to look into Democrats whom he said were threatening people in his administration with impeachment, referring to such conduct as a criminal act.

The post also accused Democrats of threatening Republican donors and called out the Michigan US senator Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, saying she was going after young people who give even the slightest inclination to be a Republican, which amounted to extortion. The US president did not present further detail or explanation of his claims.