The White House is reportedly pressing federal prosecutors to open another case against a former Olympian accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after President Donald Trump publicly raged against U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s decision to drop charges.
The Department of Justice is exploring whether to pursue additional charges against David Hearn, according to The Wall Street Journal, despite explicit admissions from administration officials shared with Pirro’s office that the damage to the pool’s newly applied lining was likely due to “botched installation.”
Trump spent the weekend insisting that vandals damaged the pool, including posting court documents on Truth Social stating that a “highly credible witness” saw 67-year-old former Olympian canoeist David Hearn “violently” rip the pool’s new blue lining. He said Pirro “should revisit her hastily made decision.”
Reports of alleged discussions to reopen a case against Hearn follow the confirmation of Todd Blanche as U.S. Attorney General amid concerns of politically motivated prosecutions of the president’s critics. Blanche refused to directly address questions about Pirro’s handling of the case against Pirro when confronted by reporters.
Last week, the judge overseeing the case against Hearn agreed to dismiss charges against him and will hold a hearing next month on whether the dismissal should be granted “with prejudice,” which would prevent the Justice Department from charging him for the same alleged conduct.
In a stunning court filing asking for charges to be dropped against Hearn, Pirro’s office admitted that the Trump-requested “American flag blue” sealant started to peel “almost immediately” after the work was completed following renovations to the site last month.
The Department of Interior “provided less than fulsome information at the outset of this case,” according to the filing from Pirro’s office.
It was not until after the indictment was filed that the agency determined that the “damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism,” the filing states.
“The Department of Justice follows the evidence when determining if crimes have been committed,” a spokesperson told The Independent. We always evaluate any case based on the facts and the law.”
"The government is continuing to attack an innocent man,” lawyers for Hearn said in a statement to The Independent on Monday following the president’s latest attacks.
“Our first filing in the case on July 10 included photographic evidence from before Mr. Hearn touched the Reflecting Pool proving that he caused no damage,” according to the statement from his legal team, which includes Norm Eisen of Democracy Defenders Fund, Mary Dohrmann of Washington Litigation Group and Steve Levin of Steptoe LLP.
“Our other filings provided even more proof. Finally, the U.S. attorney’s own motion on July 31 admitted the damage was caused by a ‘botched installation and not vandalism.’ We are reviewing all legal remedies, including for this continued harassment,” they added. “It is outrageous.”
In remarks for the Oval Office last month after Pirro moved to drop charges, Trump said his top prosecutor in Washington, D.C. “folded like an umbrella” and “choked.”
Trump initially said a refurbishing project for the 2,030-foot pool could be done quickly for $1.5 million in time for White House-backed Fourth of July celebrations.
The administration has now spent at least $14.7 million, with all funds going to Atlantic Industrial Coatings LLC, Virginia, through a no-bid contract, according to federal spending records.
The shallow pool was outfitted with a dark blue lining and “advanced nanobubbler technology” to tackle algae blooms that have long plagued the landmark. Algae returned shortly after the renovations were complete, and the new sealant started to peel off in chunks that flapped to the surface.
Evidence “strongly suggests that a rushed and botched installation” by Atlantic Industrial Coatings “led to the damage to the lining of the Reflecting Pool,” according to a motion to dismiss Hearn’s indictment from Pirro’s office.
Had the Interior Department “been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment,” Pirro’s office wrote.
The administration’s documents “reveal that work on installing the lining almost immediately fell behind, due to a combination of very rainy and windy weather, repeated failures of testing on the sealing of the expansion joints, and delays in obtaining sealing product at the work site,” she wrote.
“The rush to complete the project led to hasty and botched work that was not remediated before the project was finished and the fencing removed,” Pirro added.
In court filings, lawyers for Hearn said the case against him “was motivated by political considerations and devoid of adequate factual support” from the beginning.
“Here, amid extraordinary political pressure and public pronouncements from President Trump demanding action, and in apparent disregard for their special duties as prosecutors, [Pirro’s office] rushed to obtain a public felony indictment,” his lawyers wrote.
“It did so without a meaningful investigation into the central and obvious question in this case: whether Mr. Hearn caused, or even could have caused, any damage to the Reflecting Pool at all,” they added. “Defying both decency and common sense, the government proceeded to indict Mr. Hearn before it had obtained or evaluated the information necessary to establish a good-faith basis for the charge.”
Members of Congress are now investigating the boondoggle.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is pressing Pirro’s office and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on whether prosecutors knowingly brought a “bogus indictment” against Hearn.
“Did President Trump pressure or influence either Department to engage in wrongful actions against an American citizen?” Raskin wrote in a letter to the agencies on Tuesday.
“At a minimum, it appears that members of the Trump administration were ready and willing to imprison an innocent American for a decade in a desperate effort to soothe an ex-landlord’s wounded ego about a terrible paint job and wasteful contract,” he said.
Read MoreIran war latest: Trump claims control of Hormuz as assassination threat revealed
Trump doesn’t deny a possible federal takeover of elections
Trump’s DOJ to allow president to keep more communications hidden
Birthright citizenship groups push judge to block Trump’s latest ‘illegal’ order
Trump team tried to stop Republicans from encouraging Max Miller to drop out: report
Trump picks loyalist to oversee probe into what went wrong with the Reflecting Pool
