WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he will close East Potomac Golf Links, a 106-year-old public course within sight of the Washington Monument, on Nov. 15 for about 15 months of reconstruction, pressing ahead with a project that a federal judge has temporarily halted and that his own Justice Department has described in court as preliminary.

The announcement, posted on Truth Social from West Palm Beach, Florida, did not mention the lawsuit, the judge's orders or a hearing scheduled for Monday, The Associated Press reported.

The dispute has become a test of how far the administration can go in remaking federal property in the capital. Its other projects, including a White House ballroom, a planned triumphal arch and the closure of the Kennedy Center for renovations, have also drawn court challenges.

Trump wrote that the Interior Department, under Secretary Doug Burgum, had worked with the golf course architect Tom Fazio on a design that would stay open to the public while being built to host events such as the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship, the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup. "When completed, it will be open to the Public while, at the same time, designed to the Highest Level of Golf," he wrote.

He described the existing layout as "old, broken, dilapidated, and of no further use or effect" and said the economic effect on the city would be "tremendously positive." CBS News reported that he also cited diseased trees and a failing seawall.

The course sits on National Park Service land in East Potomac Park, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The DC Preservation League and two local golfers sued in February, represented by the legal group Democracy Forward, arguing that a championship redesign would violate environmental and preservation laws and raise the cost of playing there.

The case accelerated after the government began cutting down hundreds of trees over a holiday weekend earlier this month with little notice to the court or the plaintiffs.

At a three-hour emergency hearing on Oct. 12, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes criticized the government's lawyer for failing to warn anyone before the work began. "I trusted you all not to do precisely what you have done," she said, according to NBC News, adding that the episode had "cost the government all of its credibility."

Reyes barred further tree removal through at least Oct. 26 and ordered the administration to give three business days' written notice before any "irreparable modification" to the course. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said at the time that they were "pleased that the court intervened and will prevent additional work while we seek more lasting relief," CBS News reported.

On Friday, the Justice Department asked Reyes to remove herself from the case, arguing that what it called her "egregious" conduct at the hearing showed she was no longer impartial. In a separate filing the same day, the government said the president had given at most "preliminary thought" to the plan and that "there is no final agency action" for a court to review.

Reyes ordered the department to state by 8 p.m. Sunday whether that position had changed since Friday's filing.

It had not. In its response on Sunday night, the department said no final decision existed and that the plans remained preliminary, NBC News reported. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward argued that redesigning a golf course is not the kind of decision a court can examine. "Just as a decision to redesign all the art exhibits in a Smithsonian Museum would not be agency action," he wrote, neither was this.

National Park Service officials told the judge last week that they knew of no formal renovation plan beyond social media posts by Trump and Burgum, according to NBC.

The plaintiffs are seeking a longer-term preliminary injunction. Skye Perryman, the president and chief executive of Democracy Forward, said in a statement that "our litigation is intended to protect this community jewel for the people and communities it serves."

The AP reported that debris from the demolition of the White House East Wing has been dumped on the course grounds, and that the National Park Service said samples tested positive for lead, chromium and other toxic metals.

The plaintiffs have made the course's affordability central to their case, arguing that a tournament-grade redesign would price out the local golfers who play there now. Trump's post included an artist's rendering of the new layout and recalled that the original course "was famous for no trees, with views of Washington, D.C., for all to see."

Reyes has summoned the acting director of the National Park Service and the Interior Department's chief of staff to testify under oath at Monday's hearing about the tree removal and whether it is connected to the president's plans. She has also required Woodward to attend.