Map Blurred, Then Removed From Katie Zacharia’s Oval Office Photos as Trump Posts His East Potomac Golf Plan Ahead of a Court Hearing
A sheet of paper on President Trump’s desk was blurred out in one of Katie Zacharia’s farewell photos and was gone entirely from a second photo she posted the next day. A park advocacy group and several people online say the sheet showed a map of East Potomac Park in Washington, where a federal court fight over Trump’s planned golf course redesign returns to court Monday.
The Washington Post first reported the edits on Saturday. Neither Zacharia nor the White House has said what the sheet was or why it was obscured.
On Sunday morning, about 37 hours after the first photo was posted, Trump announced on Truth Social that work on a new East Potomac course will start Nov. 15, and posted an illustrated map of it.
WHAT THE TWO PHOTOS SHOW
Zacharia, whose exit as White House press secretary was reported last week, posted the first photo on X on Friday, Oct. 16, at 9:11 p.m. Eastern. It shows her beside Trump at the Resolute Desk, with the message: “President Trump is a kind, wonderful, gracious, thoughtful, enthusiastic, and hardworking man. I wish more Americans appreciated him. No one will ever make America great the way he has and continues to. It was an honor to work for him.”
In that photo, three blue binders sit on the front left corner of the desk. A sheet lying on top of the stack is heavily blurred, along with part of the top binder’s cover. Green and blue shapes are still visible through the blur.
Zacharia posted a second photo on Saturday, Oct. 17, at 3:24 p.m., thanking Trump “for hosting my family and me in the Oval Office and for the generous gifts you gave my children on my son’s birthday.” The same three binders appear in the same spot, but there is no sheet on top, and the top binder’s cover is plain blue with a soft smear where that detail had been.
Both posts were still up on Sunday morning, with no Community Note attached to either.
WHO SAYS THE SHEET SHOWED EAST POTOMAC PARK
The Save East Potomac Park group, which opposes the golf plan and posts on X as @SaveEastPo, wrote about an hour after the first photo went up: “FYI to anyone paying attention - that blurred out map on the PRESIDENT’S DESK is East Potomac Park.”
Aaron Fritschner wrote on X that people guessing Taiwan were “wrong, it’s Hains Point and East Potomac Park,” adding: “Turn it to Trump’s pov and you can see Buckeye Drive running straight across and the inlets on the Virginia side of the river.”
After the second photo, Poppy Wood, U.S. correspondent for Britain’s Telegraph, wrote: “First Katie Zacharia blurred out the map on Donald Trump’s desk, now she appears to have Photoshopped the map out altogether.”
Save East Po founder Alex Rosen told the Post that the image’s outline, colors and apparent lettering resembled earlier renderings of the park, according to the Daily Beast.
Asked by The Digital Free Press on Sunday whether the blurred sheet matches the course map Trump posted that morning, Rosen, whose group opposes the plan, said: “Yes it does match the one trump just shared. East Potomac has a distinctive tear drop shape that is unmistakable. Clearly that was posted in error and then the president released the full map today.” Rosen also criticized the plan itself: “Unbelievable to reduce access like this. 18 holes down from 36. No Ohio Drive. No park. No playground. No mini golf. This is an unacceptable plan full stop.”
The Digital Free Press compared the blurred shape, turned to face the president’s side of the desk, with the map Trump posted Sunday. The general outline and colors are similar, but the blur makes a positive match impossible, and no official has said what the sheet shows.
TRUMP POSTS HIS OWN EAST POTOMAC COURSE MAP
At 10:09 a.m. Sunday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the Interior Department, under Secretary Doug Burgum, and golf course architect Tom Fazio “has developed a plan to build a World Class Championship Golf Course on the site of the current East Potomac Golf Links.”
“Restoration work will begin on the Fazio Design on November 15th, when the old Course will be closed to play,” he wrote, adding that the new course would open in about 15 months and be open to the public. He described the current course as “old, broken, dilapidated,” with “falling, dangerous, and disease infested trees” and “a collapsing and hazardous seawall.”
The post included an illustrated map of an 18-hole course on the peninsula, with the presidential seal and the Interior Department seal in one corner. In June, Trump had said on Truth Social that work would start Sept. 1, NBC Washington reported.
THE COURT FIGHT OVER THE TREES
The DC Preservation League and two local residents sued the Interior Department in February to stop the redesign of the public course, which sits on National Park Service land. The case is DC Preservation League v. Department of the Interior in federal court in Washington.
On Friday, Oct. 9, the government told the court it would begin removing trees the next morning, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers. The government said at an Oct. 12 hearing that about 430 trees had come down; the plaintiffs put the number cut on Saturday alone at 529.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes then temporarily halted the tree removal. “We are talking now with potential multiple misrepresentations to the court. … I am beyond disappointed with the government,” Reyes said at the hearing, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers at Democracy Forward. In her order, she wrote that officials moved quickly “because President Trump demands haste on his redesign, and not because of some newfound zeal to implement a small part” of a 2019 Park Service report, NBC Washington reported.
Asked by The Digital Free Press on Sunday whether the plaintiffs plan to raise the Zacharia photos at Monday’s hearing, Jacob Bernard of Democracy Forward said the group is “not going to get ahead of our counsel for the hearing.” Asked about the President’s post, the group, which represents the plaintiffs, pointed to a statement from its president and CEO, Skye Perryman: “East Potomac park is a national park, golf course, recreational facility that is meant for everyone to enjoy. Our litigation is intended to protect this community jewel for the people and communities it serves and we will continue to work with our [plaintiffs] to defend it from unlawful and harmful intrusion.”
The administration has argued in court that the tree removal carries out that 2019 landscape report and has nothing to do with a golf course redesign, and it has said no final design for the course exists, according to the Daily Beast and Raw Story.
On Friday at 8:33 p.m. Eastern, Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward filed a 14-page motion asking that Reyes be disqualified and the case reassigned to another judge, Golf Channel reported. “To name just a few examples of bias, judge Reyes has unfairly questioned Trump Administration attorneys’ intelligence, allowed her disdain for the Trump Administration to influence how hearings unfold, and systematically disregarded basic separation of powers,” Woodward wrote, according to Golf Channel. The motion also asks the court to release the audio of Monday’s hearing and describes the tree work as “authorized tree maintenance in East Potomac Park.” The plaintiffs opposed the disqualification request in a separate filing and left the release of the audio to “the court’s discretion,” Golf Channel reported.
Reyes ordered two senior Interior Department and Park Service officials to testify at a hearing on Monday, Oct. 19, according to the Daily Beast. Washington Post reporter Dan Diamond wrote on X: “Officials have said it’s not related to Trump’s interest in park — which could be complicated if map is on his desk.”
WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE AND ZACHARIA SAY
Asked by the Post about the photos, Zacharia said: “Only the Washington Post would turn a very sweet picture into something controversial.” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung accused the paper of “breathlessly obsessing over an innocuous photo.” Both responses were reported by the Post and quoted by the Daily Beast and Raw Story, which are left-leaning outlets.
Neither has said what the sheet was, why it was blurred or who edited the second photo.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment from The Digital Free Press by deadline.
Sources: Katie Zacharia on X (Oct. 16 and Oct. 17, 2026); Donald J. Trump on Truth Social (Oct. 18, 2026, via the Trump’s Truth archive); posts on X by @SaveEastPo, Aaron Fritschner, Poppy Wood and Dan Diamond; The Washington Post (first reported, Oct. 17, 2026), as quoted by the Daily Beast and Raw Story; Golf Channel (Oct. 17, 2026); NBC Washington; Democracy Forward press release (Oct. 13, 2026).
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