A federal judge on Monday said she was “furious” with the Trump administration’s move over the weekend to cut down at least 430 trees from a Washington, DC, public golf course that President Donald Trump is seeking to renovate.

US District Judge Ana Reyes, who is overseeing a legal challenge to Trump’s plans to overhaul the East Potomac Golf Course, put a tentative hold on any further tree removal and is holding an emergency hearing Monday, in which she told Justice Department attorneys they had lost “credibility” with her because they gave less than a day’s notice before cutting down the trees.

“More than just being upset and furious right now, I am just beyond disappointed with the government,” Reyes said. When a DOJ attorney said they had done their “best” to give her and the plaintiffs a heads-up, the judge said, her voice raised, “No, you did your absolute worst.”

“I am thoroughly unamused right now,” Reyes also said.

  • Pratai@piefed.ca
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    8 hours ago

    If you look closely, you can see a long trail of “furious” Judges in the wake left behind this gelatinous coward fascist everywhere he goes. And if you’re paying attention, you’ll notice that not one of them ever did a thing about it-

    Thus proving, the words of judges are irrelevant to one who is above the law. Therefore there’s is only one language that speaks to such a person…

    • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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      And that’s just a flat-out lie. Judges, more than any other single group of people, have slowed Trump’s roll in every direction.

      One wonders why you’re so quick to give Trump’s dishonest flunkies a pass in order to come down harder on the judge who is trying to uphold the law – not just in spite of him, but in spite of the shit she’ll inevitably get for it.

      As the golf course renovation is already being litigated, his lackeys were supposed to notify her prior to ANY tree removal, but did not. She’s just trying to save the trees that are left after the fact, but you can only talk shit about her, and the other honest judges we still have that are doing their best to keep whatever rule of law we have left.

      Not a single negative word about them in your comment, only shit for the judge still doing her job when right and left the administration is coming down hard on anyone that opposes them. Ilhan Omar’s home just got raided today. A Wisconsin immigration judge went to jail and lost her job for objecting to ICE. Anyone who crosses him gets his followers sicced on him. And those are just off the top of my head. But this lady is still doing her job in spite of that.

      Stop giving that fat orange tumor a pass by coming down on the perceived weakness of any opposition. They’re doing what they can, and they’re doing more than you are by talking shit about anything good anyone does to slow him down.

      • Pratai@piefed.ca
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        You clearly have a reading comprehension issue if you’ve gather that I am giving him a pass. That, or you have a near zero understanding of how nuanced conversation works.

        You seee, a thing can be two things. Editing someone’s comment into a polarized this OR that so you can argue against it is distracting from the point and makes you look silly.

        Don’t do this.

        • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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          You clearly have a thing for shitting on anyone trying to stop him or his loompas, given your comment history.

          Speaking of my missing nuance (???) I did not edit your comment. Not sure what gaping stankhole of self you pulled that jewel out of, but the fact is that I merely wrote my own. Had you edited your own comment to include some mild words of disfavor for The Actual Wrongdoers along with your usual steaming pile of nobody’s doing anything, you’d never have heard from me.

          But for your sake I’ll cut to the chase. See, my basic problem with what you wrote, apart from what you actually wrote (and not just what you think you wrote), is that I am an American less than three weeks away from yet another election which foreign powers and oligarchs have poured even more money and propaganda and social media accounts into manipulating toward a specific destructive outcome, and your comment just sounds like so much concern trolling: a sound that is execrably familiar to every one of us who actually live here.

          But there’s always a tipoff that it’s not real: the actual guilty parties remain unmentioned. And there it is.

          Then again, I can’t say I expected to see you online today, so maybe there’s that as well.

          TL;DR: You wrote a comment that included an obvious, in-your-face untruth in it, one that can be readily disproven in countless ways with one simple search, and now you’re doubling down on your dishonesty to defend it, in a moment just prior to an election already mired in misinformation and propaganda efforts aimed toward getting rid of even the last vestiges of democracy. You’re helping what you claim to decry. Don’t do this.

          • Pratai@piefed.ca
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            3 hours ago

            Yep…. It’s defining a reading comprehension issue. Going to go ahead and block you so I can stop receiving these walls of text that have nothing to do with the discussion.

      • Akasazh@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        I mean if like that, but I prefer him to suffer in a jail cell, stripped of all his ill gained profits. It will drive him insane. I will savor every minute.

  • CIA_chatbot@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    I would LOVE if the thing that brought Trump down was Tree Law. It won’t happen but everything is so ridiculous thee could just be a chance

    • nymnympseudonym@piefed.social
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      10 hours ago

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Tree_Riot

      The Pine Tree Riot was an act of resistance to British royal authority undertaken by American colonists in Weare, New Hampshire, on April 14, 1772, placing it among the disputes between Crown and colonists that culminated in the American Revolution.

      In 1722, under the Broad Arrow Policy it became illegal to cut down white pine trees larger than 12 inches in diameter in New Hampshire in order to reserve them for use as Royal Navy masts. This law was not strictly enforced until 1766, when Governor John Wentworth began enforcing it.

      On April 13, 1772, Sheriff Benjamin Whiting and Deputy John Quigley discovered a sawmill in Weare, New Hampshire, violating this law. They arrested the leader, Ebenezer Mudgett, and released him on bail. The next day, Mudgett and twenty men attacked the Sheriff and Deputy at the Quimby Inn, beating them nearly to death with large rods and sending them out of town on horseback. Some credit this incident with inspiring the Boston Tea Party, which significantly contributed to the start of the American Revolutionary War.

    • unitedwithme@lemmy.today
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      Quick, someone find out if there are endangered or protected species living there that would make it a federal crime! Not that the rules really apply anymore, but would buy time until the next presidency maybe. 🤞🤞

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          Technically it is ambiguous whether the president has the authority to pardon himself, because it’s never been done before, because it’s such an open admission of absolute corruption that it would take a complete and total fuckwit not to realize that self-pardoning is the single most self incriminating act one can do.

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    She demanded that two National Park Service officials appear at the virtual hearing, which lasted more than three hours, to testify about how the plans to remove the trees came to be. The project came out of an October 5 meeting, one of the officials testified, during which the official was told to carry out a seven-year-old proposal seeking to restore the course’s “cultural” heritage.

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    Should have sanctioned harder the first time they killed trees after an injunction. They took that as permission and killed 10 times as many this time and feel indignant that the judge has any opinions about that. Fascinating how they claim no one has any idea how much it will cost. Have you ever hired a contractor to do that much work with a dollar sign and a question mark on the estimate? I know I can’t do contracts without firm quotes as a government employee.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    she told Justice Department attorneys they had lost “credibility” with her

    This inJustice Department had any credibility with her?

    Why? It is run by donnie’s personal lawyer, FFS. And before that, it was Pam Blondi.

    • Eldritch@piefed.world
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      Previously it did have a really good reputation. But you don’t have to be a legal eagle Watcher to know that that’s long gone and it is a complete joke now. All you had to do was pay attention during sandwich gate. Or watch Janine Piro’s kayak moment.

      • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        George W. Bush trying to use his DOJ to prosecute non-violent Quaker protestors… Yeah, great reputation.

        Oh the same DOJ that fucked with Aaron Swartz until he killed himself… That DOJ? Before Swartz was Bruce Ivins, whose name has been cleared by modern evidence. Didn’t mean they didn’t hound him to suicide.

        The DOJ that has always used kid gloves with the wealthy and connected and an iron fist with anyone else.

        Get the fuck out of here. This what the DOJ has always done, they just used to be better at faking the “justice” bit.

        They used to say that a Grand Jury could indict a ham sandwich… That doesn’t speak to an agency that is worried about “justice” as much as “career prospects.”

        If they can indict a ham sandwich, a non living entity, the point is they can indict anyone for anything and still get a guilty charge. That’s unequivocally A VERY BAD THING.

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          The DOJ that has always

          Either you’re ignorant or intentionally shit-stirring. Yeah, there have always been problems. On the federal level they were pretty clean relative to most other countries in the world.

          To equate at all what’s happening now with the DoJ of ten years ago is to minimize the current crisis.

          Yes, billionaires have had a lot of advantages. They have more resources to play the game. But sitting Congressmen did go to prison. The Binance guy and Sam Bankman Fried both went to prison. There was largely some justice, and when things did go wrong there was sometimes a legal remedy for it.

          Above all, there was a constant push to improve.

        • Eldritch@piefed.world
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          I was speaking of within the legal profession. I agree with you. But within the legal profession it had previously had an impeccable record.

          Remember both Schwartz and Snowden violated laws. Though just because something is a law doesn’t make it good or right. But the legal profession was doing what the legal profession was supposed to at the time. At least in a minimal sense. Even if not an equal application. Now any pretense of them actually doing the job they’re supposed to is gone. They are just a fascist lap dog purely now.

        • SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml
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          10 hours ago

          The problem is we don’t have a justice system, we have a legal system.

          “When PLUNDER becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that AUTHORIZES it and a moral code that GLORIFIES it.”

          -Frederic Bastiat- (1801–1850) France

    • mkwt@lemmy.world
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      This inJustice Department had any credibility with her?

      There is a legal principle established by case law called the “presumption of regularity.” By precedent, Judge Reyes is required to presume that the government lawyers are being credible and straight up with her

      Regardless of whatever she personally believes, she is putting them on notice that they have now lost that presumption through their behavior.

  • HorreC@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    I dont know, Hold someone accountable. Use the contempt ability, put people in jail. You can be mad and stomp your feet like a 3 year old all you want, how about actions.

    • Malica@lemmy.zip
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      Judges have loved ones and Trump is not above killing them. I can’t blame people for cowardice, it takes a lot to stand up to that.

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    8 hours ago

    Then send the D.C. police out there to tell the contractors to ceast and desist, and if they don’t, take them into custody. (IOW, what should have been done with the contractors demolishing the east wing.)