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.
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.