WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will close most of East Potomac Park in Washington beginning Nov. 15, embracing President Donald Trump’s plan to redevelop the municipal golf course there into a championship-level course geared toward professional golfers, the government said in a court filing Wednesday.

The notice, filed in a lawsuit aiming to stop the redevelopment, served as the federal government’s first official acknowledgment that it was embracing the president’s vision to turn the space into a property resembling the golf courses his family company owns and operates.

It followed months of denials by the government in court that any changes to the site — including the removal of hundreds of trees this month — were part of preparations to realize Trump’s plan.

Just last week, Stanley Woodward Jr., the third-ranking official at the Justice Department, contradicted Trump’s post online the day before and told Judge Ana C. Reyes of the U.S. District Court in Washington on Oct. 19 that there was no plan to close the course. She had ordered Woodward to appear in person again Friday to clarify.

In the filing Wednesday night, the Justice Department informed Reyes that it reached a new lease agreement with the company operating the East Potomac Golf Links. Under the terms, the company would give up management of the course, which sits on federal land, before Nov. 15, at which point the Trump administration will close it.

Besides the municipal course, the peninsula the Trump administration intends to rebuild also hosts a popular cycling circuit around its perimeter, and Hains Point, a public picnic space and playground at its south end.

Under the government’s timeline, the Nov. 15 closure, which Trump had personally announced on social media this month, would come before a planning commission votes to approve the plan.

According to the filing, the Trump administration will submit a design by golf course architect Tom Fazio to the National Capital Planning Commission for consideration at a meeting Dec. 3. Trump has stacked the board with loyalists, and it has reliably voted to approve other proposals that he has sent.

On Monday, Reyes had blocked the government from taking down more trees on the course and required the Justice Department to notify the court at least 10 days before any move to close it. The filing Wednesday served as that official notice. The Trump administration appealed the order Tuesday.

Reyes had resisted issuing any order that would prevent the federal government from changing the site, but will likely be forced to address whether the plan is lawful now that it appears imminent.

The plan to abruptly shutter the course, which has long provided an affordable and accessible option for golfers in the region, mirrored Trump’s approach in seizing control of other Washington landmarks in spite of pending litigation.

This year, a federal judge ordered the Kennedy Center to create plans to continue operating after its board, which Trump chairs, voted to close the center for two years to make renovations that would honor Trump. In September, the center closed all but a small side stage, testing the bounds of the court order. It justified the closure by citing safety concerns about the building.

On Wednesday, Trump made similar claims about closing East Potomac Golf Links, saying the golf course had fallen into disrepair and had become hazardous.

In a post on social media late Wednesday, the president wrote his administration would “hold the judge, Ana C. Reyes, fully responsible for anybody who is hurt, or killed, on this very dangerous, dilapidated, and unsightly Golf Course.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Zach Montague/Andrew leyden
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