A federal judge ordered Justice Department lawyers to sign a government filing, invoking the rule used to sanction attorneys, hours after President Donald Trump called her a “crazed lunatic.”
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes made the demand Monday at a hearing in a lawsuit seeking to stop Trump’s overhaul of East Potomac Golf Links, a public course in Washington, Lawfare’s Roger Parloff reported in a live-blog of the hearing.
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr., the Justice Department’s third-ranking official, signed the filing the government submitted Sunday night, according to Parloff.
Reyes ordered Woodward to refile it with the signatures of every DOJ lawyer willing to sign, Parloff reported.
“[DOJ attorneys], raise your hand if you’re willing to sign it,” Reyes said.
Woodward called it “not an appropriate request.”
“Right now, for Rule 11 purposes, which other [attorneys are] willing to sign this brief?” Reyes pressed.
Rule 11 is the federal rule that requires lawyers to vouch for the claims in court filings they sign. If a judge finds a violation, the rule allows sanctions against the attorney, the law firm or the party.
“I’m going to instruct [the attorneys] not to answer,” Woodward said.
“I’m ordering you all to come to the podium and sign it. I’m giving them a direct order,” Reyes shot back.
She told Woodward that he had signed the filing as an officer of the court, according to Parloff.
“I’m entitled to know what other DOJ [attorneys are] willing to sign it,” Reyes said.
Signing would make each lawyer personally responsible under Rule 11, while refusing risked violating a direct order from the bench.
Reyes gave Woodward until 3 p.m. to file a brief explaining why the lawyers should not have to respond to her order, Parloff reported.
About four hours before the hearing, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “The judge on the case is a crazed lunatic whose courthouse tapes will reveal, may be insane?”
The plaintiffs filed the post with the court Monday, highlighting its claim that work at the course “is scheduled to begin IMMEDIATELY!”
A day earlier, Reyes had ordered the government to say by 8 p.m. whether it still claimed that Trump had given only “preliminary thought” to the plan, Parloff reported.
Woodward’s filing that night said the government “maintain[s] that there is no final agency action here,” arguing that the National Park Service had not finished reviewing the plan. It also said the court’s order “mischaracterizes Defendants’ position.”
In a written order that same day, Reyes rejected a DOJ motion asking her to step aside for bias.
“That is a serious charge. The Court answers it. With the record,” she wrote.
Later in the hearing, Reyes pressed Robert Stander, the DOJ lawyer arguing against the plaintiffs’ bid to halt the project, on what the department knew about its earlier claims regarding the course’s trees, Parloff reported.
The government had said the tree removal, which began Oct. 10 and was set to take down more than 500 trees, was part of a 2019 plan that predated Trump’s redesign, a claim a National Park Service official repeated at an Oct. 12 hearing, according to Parloff and Reuters.
Stander called the question “not relevant,” Parloff reported.
“I’m the one who decides what’s relevant,” Reyes replied.