Category: U.S. Department of the Interior — Senior Political Appointee (Schedule C) Role: Deputy Chief of Staff at the Department of the Interior under Secretary Doug Burgum. Per sworn court testimony from an NPS career official, Wischer convened an October 5, 2026 meeting at which he directed the accelerated removal of hundreds of trees at East Potomac Golf Links — a historic Washington, D.C. golf course at the center of federal litigation over the Trump administration’s redevelopment plans — and a federal judge has ordered him to testify under oath about it. Priority: P2 (documented, not individually criminal role — a sub-cabinet appointee’s documented operational direction over site work a federal judge has found likely violated NEPA and the court’s own notice requirements; this assignment is provisional pending Wischer’s October 19, 2026 sworn testimony, which may change the record)

Role

SourceU.S. Department of the Interior, OS Monthly FOIA Log, June 2026 (Source 14); NPR (Source 4); WUSA9 (Source 6).Wischer serves as Deputy Chief of Staff at the Interior Department, the cabinet agency Doug Burgum leads that oversees the National Park Service and roughly 500 million acres of federal public land. Multiple news organizations and the Department’s own June 2026 FOIA log identify him by that title; in 2025 filings he is identified as “Deputy Chief of Staff-Policy.” He is not Senate-confirmed.

SourcePublic Domain (Source 15); WUSA9 (Source 6); POLITICO (Source 7).Investigative reporting based on Interior Department visitor logs describes Wischer as a recurring point of contact between the President and several of the administration’s Washington, D.C. construction and spectacle projects, and sworn testimony in ongoing litigation places him as the Interior Department official who ordered NPS to move quickly on removing trees at East Potomac Golf Links in October 2026.

Basis for Inclusion Subject classification: Public Official — Senior Political Appointee (Schedule C / non-career; Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Department of the Interior). Wischer is an appointed federal official acting in his official capacity throughout the conduct below; the private-citizen inclusion gate (patriot-private-citizen-inclusion-gate) does not apply to this profile. Role at time of documented conduct: Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Department of the Interior (titled “Deputy Chief of Staff-Policy” in an August 2025 memorandum; “Deputy Chief of Staff” in the Department’s own mid-2026 FOIA log and in October 2026 court reporting). This profile documents conduct taken in Wischer’s official capacity: a directive to National Park Service career staff described in that staff’s own sworn courtroom testimony; a policy memorandum he personally signed; his reported role as a recurring contact for several of the President’s Washington construction and event projects, drawn from Interior Department visitor logs; and a reported, unresolved discrepancy between his and his spouse’s federal financial disclosures, flagged by a nonpartisan watchdog group to the Office of Government Ethics. It does not rely on protected political speech. What is not yet the basis for inclusion: As of this draft, Wischer has not yet testified in DC Preservation League v. Department of Interior. The court has ordered him to appear and give sworn testimony on October 19, 2026, which may confirm, qualify, or contradict the secondhand account of his October 5 directive given here by Frank Lands. No court has made any finding against Wischer personally, and no Office of Government Ethics determination on the financial-disclosure discrepancy is public.

Background

SourceE&E News/POLITICO, by Heather Richards and Hannah Northey, March 7, 2025 (Source 12); ProPublica, Trump Team Financial Disclosures (Source 13).Before joining the Interior Department, Wischer worked as a consultant in the critical-minerals industry and served as an executive vice president at Westwin Elements, a nickel-refining company, in 2022 and 2023. He joined Interior in February 2025 as deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management, a post POLITICO’s E&E News reported was aimed at advancing the administration’s critical-minerals and public-lands agenda.

SourceRenewable + Law (Stoel Rives LLP), by Sarah Stauffer Curtiss, August 2025, citing Wischer’s Aug. 4, 2025 memorandum (Source 11). Investigative reporting separately describes Wischer, drawing on Interior Department visitor logs, as a repeated point of contact for figures connected to the President’s Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation, the June 2026 UFC event on the White House South Lawn, and the August 2026 IndyCar Grand Prix on the National Mall.SourcePublic Domain, by Jimmy Tobias and Chris D’Angelo, Sept. 11, 2026 (Source 15).By August 2025 Wischer held the title Deputy Chief of Staff-Policy, in which capacity he personally signed a memorandum directing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to refer Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act violations to Interior’s Solicitor’s Office for possible Justice Department criminal or civil referral, and to evaluate whether existing eagle “incidental take” permits for wind-energy projects comply with the Act — part of the administration’s broader push against wind-energy permitting under Executive Order 14315.

SourcePublic Domain (Source 15).His wife, Joanna Miller Wischer, is a longtime Trump-aligned political operative who served in both Trump administrations and now serves as deputy director of the Made in America Office at the Office of Management and Budget.

Documented Actions

1. October 2026 tree-clearing at East Potomac Golf Links, ordered at a meeting Wischer convened (Oct. 5–13, 2026)

Evidence: On October 5, 2026, per sworn testimony from NPS Deputy Director of Operations Frank Lands given in federal court, Gregory Wischer convened a meeting in his office and directed Lands to move forward on a tree-removal plan at East Potomac Golf Links “as soon as practical.” Lands testified he was not told why the work needed to proceed on that timeline, and when the court asked whether he was given a reason, he answered “negative.” NPS Superintendent Kevin Griess testified separately that he had submitted a tree-management plan, including removals, to NPS leadership on October 5 and received approval the next day, and that neither he nor Lands believed there was any urgency requiring the work to happen that particular weekend.

At 4:55 p.m. on Friday, October 9 — ahead of the Columbus Day holiday weekend — NPS filed notice with the court that work would begin the next morning in a wooded area NPS staff call “Trash Island.” Crews began cutting roughly 12 hours later. By a Monday, October 12 evidentiary hearing held remotely by Zoom, government counsel told U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes that 430 trees had already been cut, with about 299 more scheduled, as part of a stated plan to remove “up to 529 trees” that the government says do not contribute to the historic landscape, citing a 2019 NPS cultural-landscape rehabilitation report. The government has maintained the removals are unrelated to the administration’s separate, publicly announced plan to rebuild the course as a championship venue.

SourceWUSA9, “‘I am thoroughly unamused right now’ | East Potomac Golf Course tree removal must stop temporarily, federal court orders,” Oct. 12, 2026 (Source 6); POLITICO, “‘Furious’ judge halts Trump admin’s tree demolition at DC’s East Potomac golf course,” Oct. 12, 2026 (Source 7); CBS News, “Judge chastises Justice Department lawyers after hundreds of trees cut down at D.C. golf course,” updated Oct. 12, 2026 (Source 2); PBS NewsHour/Associated Press, by Gary Fields (Matthew Daly contributing), “Federal judge orders Trump administration to halt work for a day on historic D.C. golf course,” Oct. 12, 2026 (Source 5); ABC News, “Judge explodes at Trump admin lawyers after hundreds of trees felled at DC public golf course,” Oct. 13, 2026 (Source 1); NPR, by Rachel Treisman, “Judge blocks Trump’s East Potomac Golf Course tree clearing,” Oct. 13, 2026 (Source 4).Reyes, during a three-hour hearing, told Justice Department counsel the government’s account was “all double speak” and called its explanation “preposterous,” and said she was examining whether she had been misled about the plan, its timing, and the notice the court was supposed to receive. She found the testimony from Griess and Lands did not establish any genuine urgency for the holiday-weekend timing. Wischer could not be reached to testify that day. Reyes rescheduled the evidentiary hearing to October 19, 2026, and ordered that “Gregory Wischer and Jessica Bowron attend Monday’s TRO/PI evidentiary hearing and be prepared to present sworn testimony.” On October 13, 2026, Reyes granted the plaintiffs’ emergency motion for a temporary restraining order, finding on the existing record that they had shown a likelihood of success on their jurisdictional and National Environmental Policy Act claims and a likelihood of irreparable harm absent relief; she barred the government from felling further trees at the course through October 26, 2026, and ordered it to give the court and plaintiffs three business days’ written advance notice before making any irreversible change to the course through that date.

Court record: DC Preservation League v. Department of Interior, No. 1:26-cv-00477-ACR (D.D.C.) — Minute Order, Oct. 12, 2026, Judge Ana C. Reyes, ordering Gregory Wischer and Jessica Bowron to appear and testify Oct. 19, 2026 (CourtListener docket 72278895) (Source 16); Dkt. 79, Memorandum Opinion granting Plaintiffs’ Emergency Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order, signed by Judge Ana C. Reyes, Oct. 13, 2026 (Source 17).

Pattern: A sub-cabinet political appointee directs career National Park Service staff to accelerate irreversible physical work at a site under active federal litigation, on a holiday weekend, with notice to the court that the judge found insufficient and misleading — then is unreachable when the court calls for an explanation.

2. Named as present when Trump and Burgum toured East Potomac to plan its redevelopment (June 28, 2026)

Evidence: The government has confirmed in a court filing that the officials who accompanied President Trump on his June 28, 2026 site visit to East Potomac Golf Links — where Trump reviewed renderings for a championship-course redesign with golf architect Tom Fazio — were Secretary Doug Burgum, Deputy Chief of Staff Gregory Wischer, and NPS Deputy Director Frank Lands. This filing is reused here exactly as cited in the Kevin Griess profile; it was not independently re-derived this session.

Court record: DC Preservation League v. Department of Interior, No. 1:26-cv-00477-ACR (D.D.C.), Dkt. 63 (Defs.’ Resp. to the Court’s July 6, 2026 Minute Order, July 17, 2026) (Source 18).

Pattern: The same appointee who later directed the October tree removal was, months earlier, in the room when the President and the Secretary planned the redesign the agency maintains is a separate, unrelated project.

3. Financial-disclosure discrepancies flagged to the Office of Government Ethics (reported, unresolved)

SourcePublic Domain, by Jimmy Tobias and Chris D’Angelo, “Meet The Young Political Appointee Boosting Trump’s ‘Vanity Projects,'” Sept. 11, 2026, citing Wischer’s and Miller Wischer’s financial disclosures and the Campaign Legal Center’s May 2026 letter to OGE, both via DocumentCloud (Source 15).Evidence: Wischer and his wife, Joanna Miller Wischer, each filed federal financial disclosures as political appointees that are required to list one another’s shared assets and income. Investigative outlet Public Domain reported that the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan ethics watchdog, identified discrepancies between the two filings: Wischer’s disclosure valued a shared Roth IRA money-market fund at $15,001–$50,000, while his wife’s valued the same account at $1,001–$15,000; and Wischer’s disclosure listed more than $55,000 in salary and severance from Westwin Elements that his wife’s disclosure omitted entirely. In May 2026 the Campaign Legal Center wrote to the Office of Government Ethics describing the inconsistencies as “conspicuous” and “obviously incorrect,” and said the disclosures “require amendments to help determine if the inaccuracies are intentional.” The Campaign Legal Center told Public Domain it had received no response from OGE. An Interior Department spokesperson told Public Domain the disclosures “are currently being reconciled.”

Pattern: A reported inconsistency in sworn federal ethics filings for a political appointee and spouse, unresolved as of the most recent reporting. This is not a finding of wrongdoing by any court or by OGE.

Pattern Analysis

Cross-References

Wischer is not named as a defendant in DC Preservation League v. Department of Interior — the suit proceeds against the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, Secretary Burgum, and NPS officials in their official capacities. But the record assembled so far places him, not any cabinet official, as the person who told NPS to move on the October tree removal, and the same person present at the June site visit where the President and Secretary Burgum planned the course’s redesign. If his October 19 testimony confirms Lands’s account, this profile’s severity and priority should be revisited; if it contradicts it, that conflict itself becomes part of the record the court is examining.

Related profiles:

• kevin-griess-profile (NPS Superintendent whose sworn declarations and testimony are the other half of the record on the same tree-removal episode)
• doug-burgum-profile (Secretary of the Interior; toured the course with Trump and Wischer; announced the championship redesign)
• donald-trump-profile (publicly committed to the course’s redevelopment and set its timeline)

Related skills:

• legal-research-specialist (tracking the underlying litigation, including the Oct. 19, 2026 hearing)
• public-records-research-specialist (DOI visitor logs, financial disclosures, FOIA logs)
• public-corruption-ombudsman (financial-disclosure discrepancy evidence tier)

Severity Assessment

Immediate harm: Moderate — roughly 430 trees felled in a National Register historic district over a holiday weekend, with up to 529 planned, at a site a federal court has now ordered work halted on pending further proceedings. Democratic erosion: Moderate — a political appointee’s directive to career staff produced site work a federal judge found likely violated NEPA and was carried out with notice the court found inadequate and possibly misleading; whether this was deliberate evasion of the court’s standing order is contested and unresolved pending the Oct. 19 testimony. Authoritarian marker: Operational authority over a park unit’s physical condition exercised informally by a non-Senate-confirmed aide, outside any public announcement of that authority, documented only through litigation and internal visitor logs rather than any public accountability mechanism.

Accountability Status

Current status: Active (serving as Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Department of the Interior)

Legal exposure:

• No criminal or personal civil exposure is documented. Wischer is not a defendant in DC Preservation League v. Department of Interior; the named defendants are the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, and agency officials sued in their official capacities.
• If his October 19, 2026 sworn testimony establishes that the October 5 directive was timed to evade the court’s standing notice requirement, the government (not Wischer personally, absent further proceedings) could face civil contempt exposure; this is not yet established and the hearing has not occurred as of this draft.
• The financial-disclosure discrepancy reported by the Campaign Legal Center has not produced any public OGE finding, referral, or penalty as of this draft.

Litigation status (as of October 14, 2026): The court’s October 13, 2026 temporary restraining order bars further tree removal at East Potomac Golf Links through October 26, 2026, and requires three business days’ written notice before any further irreversible change to the course through that date. An evidentiary hearing on a preliminary injunction is scheduled for October 19, 2026, at which Wischer and acting NPS Director Jessica Bowron have been ordered to testify under oath. Court record: Minute Order, Oct. 12, 2026; Dkt. 79, Oct. 13, 2026 (Source 16, 17).

Congressional oversight:

• House Natural Resources Committee (NPS management; the park’s 1897 founding statute; the same jurisdiction documented in the Kevin Griess profile).
• House Oversight and Accountability (agency conduct; financial-disclosure compliance by political appointees).

Public accountability:

• DC Preservation League v. Department of Interior, No. 1:26-cv-00477-ACR (D.D.C.) — plaintiffs DC Preservation League, Dave Roberts, and Alex Dickson; represented by Democracy Forward Foundation, Lowell & Associates, and Democracy Defenders Fund (reused from the Kevin Griess profile; not independently re-derived this session).
• Campaign Legal Center’s May 2026 letter to the Office of Government Ethics regarding the Wischer/Miller Wischer financial-disclosure discrepancies.
• Continuing investigative coverage by Public Domain (Jimmy Tobias, Chris D’Angelo) and wire/broadcast coverage of the litigation by AP, NPR, CBS News, ABC News, and POLITICO.

Truth and Reconciliation Considerations

Investigation priorities

1. What exactly did Wischer say at the October 5, 2026 meeting with Frank Lands, and did he communicate any rationale tied to the litigation’s posture or a redevelopment timeline, as distinct from the stated 2019 cultural-landscape maintenance rationale?
2. Why was Wischer unreachable for the October 12, 2026 hearing despite the court’s request, and what communications exist between him, Secretary Burgum, Jessica Bowron, Kevin Griess, and the White House regarding the timing of the holiday-weekend tree removal?
3. What is the relationship, if any, between Wischer’s broader documented role coordinating the President’s Washington, D.C. construction and event projects (visitor logs) and his October directive on the golf-course tree removal?
4. What has become of the Campaign Legal Center’s May 2026 complaint to the Office of Government Ethics regarding the Wischer/Miller Wischer financial-disclosure discrepancies — has either disclosure been amended, or has OGE opened or closed a review?
5. Did Wischer, or anyone directing him, intend the October 9–11 tree removal to outpace or evade the court’s standing notice requirement, and did Justice Department counsel know the planned scope of the removal before representing otherwise to the court?

Testimony value

Wischer’s October 19, 2026 sworn testimony is expected to be the first direct account, from the person Frank Lands named as having given the order, of why the tree removal proceeded over a holiday weekend with minimal notice. Compelled testimony could establish whether the timing was driven by the stated maintenance rationale, by the litigation’s posture, or by direction from Secretary Burgum or the White House — and could resolve whether Lands’s account of the October 5 meeting is accurate.

Institutional reform

• Documented-directive rule: Require any directive from a political appointee to career agency staff to accelerate site work at a unit under active litigation to be made in writing and retained, producible to a reviewing court on request.
• OGE response deadline: Require the Office of Government Ethics to respond publicly, within a fixed period, to a watchdog-identified discrepancy in a political appointee’s financial disclosure.
• Litigation-notice bright line: Codify a minimum notice period (e.g., three business days, as the court has now ordered here) before tree or vegetation removal at a National Register-eligible landscape once related litigation is pending, rather than leaving it to case-by-case court order.
• Authorization-chain requirement: Bar a non-Senate-confirmed appointee from directing operational site work at a unit of the National Park System without a documented, reviewable chain of authorization from agency leadership.

Investigative trail pointers (public records)

Education only — verify independently. Absence of hits is not proof.

Use public-records-research-specialist and public-corruption-ombudsman evidence tiers.

Cross-References

Skills: legal-research-specialist, public-records-research-specialist, public-corruption-ombudsman

Related profiles: kevin-griess-profile, doug-burgum-profile, donald-trump-profile

Topics: East Potomac Golf Course, National Park Service, tree removal, NEPA litigation, Interior Department, financial disclosure

Factual correction requests: If you believe information in this profile is incorrect, please contact factcheck@citizenanalyst.ai with your name (optional), the specific claim, and any supporting documentation. We review all submissions and correct verified errors promptly.

Sources

1. ABC News, “Judge explodes at Trump admin lawyers after hundreds of trees felled at DC public golf course,” Oct. 13, 2026. https://abcnews.com/Politics/judge-explodes-trump-admin-lawyers-after-hundreds-trees/story?id=137204023
2. CBS News, “Judge chastises Justice Department lawyers after hundreds of trees cut down at D.C. golf course,” updated Oct. 12, 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-ana-reyes-justice-department-trees-east-potomac-golf-course
3. Instagram (news aggregator post), “A federal judge has ordered testimony from two high-level officials with the Interior Department…,” Oct. 13, 2026. https://www.instagram.com/p/DecRi84ETAc
4. NPR, by Rachel Treisman, “Judge blocks Trump’s East Potomac Golf Course tree clearing,” Oct. 13, 2026. https://www.npr.org/2026/10/13/nx-s1-6000055/east-potomac-golf-course-tree-clearing-judge
5. PBS NewsHour / Associated Press, by Gary Fields (Matthew Daly contributing), “Federal judge orders Trump administration to halt work for a day on historic D.C. golf course,” Oct. 12, 2026. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/federal-judge-orders-trump-administration-to-halt-work-for-a-day-on-historic-d-c-golf-course
6. WUSA9, “‘I am thoroughly unamused right now’ | East Potomac Golf Course tree removal must stop temporarily, federal court orders,” Oct. 12, 2026. https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/legal/east-potomac-park-golf-course-tree-removal-must-stop-temporarily-federal-court-orders/65-3ceba10a-21e0-4b78-a007-efc1c626cebd
7. POLITICO, “‘Furious’ judge halts Trump admin’s tree demolition at DC’s East Potomac golf course,” Oct. 12, 2026. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/12/golf-course-trees-hearing-donald-trump
8. ABC News (AP), by Matthew Daly, “Park service could remove more than 500 trees at historic golf course Trump wants to redesign,” Oct. 10, 2026. https://abcnews.com/US/wireStory/park-service-remove-500-trees-historic-golf-trump-137163526
9. NBC4 Washington, by Jessica Albert, “More than 500 trees could be cut down at East Potomac Park,” Oct. 10, 2026. https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/more-than-500-trees-could-be-cut-down-at-east-potomac-park/4165950
10. NBC4 Washington, “More trees cut down in East Potomac Park” (video report), Oct. 10, 2026. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Wf3uTefAPB0
11. Renewable + Law (Stoel Rives LLP), by Sarah Stauffer Curtiss, “U.S. Department of Interior Directs U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to Audit Eagle Permitting Program, Signals Potential for Increased Enforcement for Wind Energy Projects,” Aug. 2025, citing Wischer’s Aug. 4, 2025 memorandum. https://www.lawofrenewableenergy.com/2025/08/articles/renewable/wind/u-s-department-of-interior-directs-u-s-fish-and-wildlife-service-to-audit-eagle-permitting-program-signals-potential-for-increased-enforcement-for-wind-energy-projects
12. E&E News (POLITICO), by Heather Richards and Hannah Northey, “Critical minerals consultant named to Interior energy post,” March 7, 2025. https://www.eenews.net/articles/critical-minerals-consultant-named-to-interior-energy-post
13. ProPublica, “Gregory Wischer – Explore Financial Disclosures From Trump Team Appointees.” https://projects.propublica.org/trump-team-financial-disclosures/appointees/wischer-gregory
14. U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of the Secretary, “Monthly FOIA Log,” June 2026 (lists “Gregory Wischer, Deputy Chief of Staff”). https://www.doi.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2026-07/june-2026-foia-log.pdf
15. Public Domain, by Jimmy Tobias and Chris D’Angelo, “Meet The Young Political Appointee Boosting Trump’s ‘Vanity Projects,'” Sept. 11, 2026. https://www.publicdomain.media/p/greg-wischer-interior-department-trump-vanity-projects
16. DC Preservation League v. Department of Interior, No. 1:26-cv-00477-ACR (D.D.C.), Minute Order, Oct. 12, 2026, Judge Ana C. Reyes — docket 72278895. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72278895/dc-preservation-league-v-department-of-interior/
17. Same case, Dkt. 79 (Memorandum Opinion granting Plaintiffs’ Emergency Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order, signed by Judge Ana C. Reyes, Oct. 13, 2026). https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.dcd.289401/gov.uscourts.dcd.289401.79.0.pdf
18. Same case, Dkt. 63 (Defs.’ Resp. to the Court’s July 6, 2026 Minute Order, July 17, 2026) — naming Deputy Chief of Staff Gregory Wischer as present on Trump’s June 28, 2026 site visit; cited here exactly as it appears in the kevin-griess-profile sources, not independently re-derived. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.289401/gov.uscourts.dcd.289401.63.0_2.pdf

Last Updated: 2026-10-14 Profile Status: Draft Next Review: Weekly until the Oct. 19, 2026 evidentiary hearing; monthly thereafter