Interior Department terminated National Links Trust's D.C. golf-course lease on disputed grounds, clearing path for a Trump-favored redesign

On December 30, 2025, the Interior Department's Solicitor, William Doffermyre, sent National Links Trust (NLT) a letter terminating its 50-year lease to manage Washington, D.C.'s three public golf courses — East Potomac, Langston, and Rock Creek — following an October 29, 2025 default notice. The termination letter asserted NLT had failed to complete required capital improvements on schedule, had not offered a "reasonable and credible" cure proposal, and owed roughly $8.8 million in unpaid rent. NLT disputed the basis for the action, saying it has "always had a productive and cooperative working relationship with the National Park Service," had invested more than $8.5 million in the courses since taking over the 2020 lease, and had mobilized roughly $1 million in construction at Rock Creek during the 45-day cure period. A congressional oversight letter later identified the lease's own Section 17.1, which requires a written default notice naming specific violations and a 45-day cure period, and said NLT received none of that detail in the October 29 notice.

The termination followed months of parallel activity inside the administration. On August 1, 2025, Secretary Burgum and Doffermyre pitched President Trump on converting East Potomac into a high-end tournament venue to be called "Washington National Golf Course," and Trump's own longtime personal golf-course architect, Tom Fazio, toured the course and visited the White House in November 2025, weeks before the termination letter issued. NLT's own selected architect for the East Potomac renovation, Tom Doak, had been pursuing a restoration of the course's original Walter Travis design — a plan the administration's new direction would displace. NLT was permitted to remain as day-to-day operator of all three courses in the short term while the future of the leases and any redevelopment remained unresolved.

This is recorded under self-dealing. Interior used its lease-termination authority against an incumbent nonprofit operator on a contested factual basis, at the same time its own leadership was pitching the president on redirecting the same property to a design overseen by his personal architect — clearing the way for a redevelopment already reported as steered toward Trump's own preferences. The archive's related entry, federal-self-dealing-753a2aae, records the later May 2026 unveiling of that Fazio redesign; this entry records the earlier, separately-dated and separately-contested act — the lease termination itself — that made the takeover possible.

Updates

2026-02-13 — DC Preservation League and two golfers sued Interior/NPS over the termination and debris dumping [4]

On February 13, 2026, the DC Preservation League and two local golfers sued the Department of the Interior and National Park Service in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the lease termination as part of an effort to convert East Potomac into an exclusive course for the president and separately alleging the administration dumped roughly 30,000 cubic yards of White House renovation debris onto the course in October 2025 without required environmental review.

2026-05-04 — Judge denied emergency bid to halt tree-clearing and construction [5]

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes denied the plaintiffs' emergency request to halt tree-clearing and construction that began that week, warning of "serious consequences" if irreversible harm occurred before the underlying case could be resolved; litigation over the termination and debris-dumping claims continued.