Judge loses patience with Trump aide who ‘can’t recall’ talks about Trump’s golf course

A federal judge directed an Interior official to turn off automatic deletion after he claimed he “can’t recall” contacts with the golf architect from his tour with President Donald Trump.U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes gave the instruction Monday to Greg Wischer, the Interior Department’s deputy chief of staff, during a court hearing, Lawfare’s Roger Parloff reported in a live blog of the hearing.Reyes is overseeing a lawsuit that seeks to stop Trump’s overhaul of East Potomac Golf Links, a public course in Washington. She ordered officials, including Wischer, to testify about whether the tree removal there this month, which was set to take down more than 500 trees, was tied to Trump’s plans, the Guardian reported.The government has said the trees came down under a 2019 plan written before Trump’s push to redesign the course. At an Oct. 12 hearing, Frank Lands, the National Park Service’s deputy director for operations,...