Trump pushes DOJ to open another case against ex-Olympian after raging over dropped Reflecting Pool charges: report | The Independent
By: Alex Woodward (The Independent)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
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.
open image in gallery (Getty)
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.
open image in gallery (Reuters)
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.
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The fascist loser in the White House needs to be impeached.
someone needs to knock some sense into him. metaphorically of course
Wouldn't what that asshole PotUS wants to do be considered some kind of double jeopardy since the court dropped the case?
Trump is trying to be a law unto himself! This fool has no law degree, and yet he thinks he should be able to TOUCH AND RUIN anyone's life just because he can't be made to look like the fool he is. So he wants this HERO of the country. . . a man who made something of himself. . . to spend his wealth on a bogus charge. Worse, he want lawyers at the DOJ to put their law licenses on the line for the sake of his personal grudge against his fellow citzens.
Do not miss what is being asked: Our president is asking us to "do something for him that is wrong" and order for him to feel 'whole' or right about it.
This is pathetic. And, the GOP is sitting on its. . . haunches, taking it all in, and doing nothing substantive about it. Not a peep out of them or the Trump surrogates on NT!
I simply can't believe the level of disgrace - how can Americans allow themselves to continue to be so embarrassed?
ASK MAGA. . . what is worse. . . they SUPPORT Trump continuing to badger, financially ruin, and sabotage Mr. Hearn. Just listen to the SILENCE on the matter not coming from the Right (I sure don't hear or read anyone in MAGA telling their president to STOP THIS!)
The rest of us? We're being dragged (undertow) by the ship of state MAGA is cruising inside due to 2024 elections. (It will be to the nation's deepening shame if this is not 'corrected' in the 2026 mid-terms by house and senate chambers majorities changing to democrats (somebody that WILL check our louse of a president.)
November will provide the opportunity, but so much damage has been done already that it will be a long time before it can be reversed.
It's okay. We can rebuild (the good).
Ask the people that voted for him, they seem fine with it.
It's a hard hard thing for one to admit they were stupid.
And yet still admitting one has been a fool and will repent (go in the other direction) is good for one's soul!
They are fine with the embarrassment! Trump is laughing his way to the bank. . . finally that fool has achieved wealth beyond his wildest dreams and its all because of the stupid MAGA supporters (in the millions) that guard him as he raids the country from top to bottom.
Nobody in their right mind would allow Trump to do this to us, and we should make DAMN SURE that in the 2026 mid-terms that congress gets off its KNEES licking Trump's metaphorical piss off the dirty floors and recommit to representing us not this fool that never has put anybody before himself.
Insult to injury. These GOP fools are so f-ked up in the head that they not only let Trump grift the country. . . TRUMP is so comfortable with his control over the GOP that he is letting his children fill their pockets through corruption and fleecing the country! All out in public. . . and the rubes just look on and 'block.' Stupid GOP fools
(It's utterly disgusting to watch and live through.)
Spot on.
LOL. That is a rare occurrence here.
Cant make this shit up.
Some one should inform him what "dismissed with prejudice" means!
I think they think it means what they're trying to do within the military that Hegseth is carrying out when it comes to women and minorities, "Lady's, gay Americans, fatties and beardo's, you have been dismissed with prejudice! No one has more prejudice than cocky coked-up self-centered white male Christian assholes, so that's what we now want our military made of!"
... don't forget the now required perpetual boners.
Thank yew, that made me laff out loud.
Meanwhile Katherine Leavitt finally had enough of his lying and her covering for him.
It will remain to be seen, just how much of a top adviser she can be outside of the WH when she is changing her own kids diapers and cleaning their poopy asses instead of his.
she left of her own accord, knowing she only had a dozen years to groom her children for conservative xtians that just graduated college ...
Awww...no more Pinochio Caro?
It has to be the worst job in America and few survive it.
The conservatives scream bloody murder every minute of every Democratic POTUS and WH briefings.
The non conservative folks scream even more loudly when the daily lying under the Mara logo Administration got to a point that they stopped WH briefings altogether.
then came Karoline...
Very professional, even Huckabee Sanders was better than this, but no one in the Trump show is picked for ability;
that would be too responsible for the Gold Gilded One.
They all need to grow the fuck up. And you're right, Sanders was never that bad.
Trump is an aggressive societal cancer; it goes into remission but keeps resurfacing.
This guy is a true psychopath. He truly does not give one shit about anyone else. Here he is again trying to ruin the life of some individual because he cannot admit that he is a lying sack of shit.
I remain amazed that this sick asshole is PotUS. What kind of a mind still supports him?
-- J.D. Vance, 2016
the defective kind ...
political herpes ...
This kind.
Mindless.
Wishful thinking... It is a mind filled with nothing but racism and hate.
The GOP mind!
I would say the GOPTRUMP mind. The true GOP is either dead or in suspended animation.
Also, I think it is pathetic that GOP loyalists cannot distinguish between loyalty to a name vs loyalty to a principle. For example, the GOP used to be the law and order party in principle. So how exactly can any GOP loyalist support the most corrupt administration in our history? Just one of many examples.
What we have today is the real GOP. As disgusting as that is.
The toy soldier in charge wants to revive the steam pipe fitter industry by replacing the modern electromagnetic air craft carrier catapult with the steam system that is 40% less efficient and requires miles of additional pipes which require constant maintenance.
Being from NYC where almost 70% of the city relies on steam heat and boilers which are in many cases historical relics, Trump fancies himself an expert and penned an Executive order to stop all ship construction involving the new catapults, ripping them out and replacing them with steam systems.
Its only a tiny push to imagine that he will try to revive the coal industry as well by abandoning nuclear power and turbines by bringing back the dread MOS for Coal Passer and Coal Heaver.
‘Very outdated’: Trump’s directive to revert to steam catapults on new aircraft carrier baffles naval experts | CNN Politics
Trump Orders Navy to Spend Billions Ripping Out a New Tech System
This is insane.
And all the deplorable MAGAites that elected this piece of shit are busy burying their heads in the sand trying to avoid any responsibility by acting like nothings wrong. And some of them found the sand where last they pounded it.
"Hey! Is there a beach in here?...here?...here?...here?..."
You are indicative of an independent voter component that needs to speak (as a whole) this November!
This is UNACCEPTABLE. The GOP is like a 'fat, fatty, cat or dog' licking a basket of ham shanks, because it has responded with AGGRESSION at every turn. Even when in effect the figurative DYNAMITE they throw blows up and back in their faces. They just keep running away from REAL NATIONAL PROBLEMS in our country by hurling themselves OVER THE CLIFF of a new set of political dynamics.
How many (more) times must we watch weak-ass GOPers APPEASE Trump, think Collins, Tillis, Cassidy, Lisa Murkowski, and so forth. Two of the listed ones. . .Trump basically threw them so far over the cliff that they will undoubtedly NEVER WORK IN D.C. during Trump Administration's remaining two years. . . they will continue to FALL because, and they know and can believe this because they have seen it done to others, Trump will hunt them down in the private sector basically ensuring they are PROPERLY BLACKBALLED in this town (D.C.)
And STILL, these fools kiss the ground Trump pisses on for them to suck up.