WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has dropped its case against a former Olympic canoeist charged in connection with damage to the Reflecting Pool, acknowledging their allegations against David “Davey” Hearn don’t hold water.
In a filing Friday afternoon, a supervisor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which is headed by Jeanine Pirro, wrote that officials obtained information that undermined “the evidentiary basis for the indictment” against Hearn.
Prosecutors said that after the indictment, the Interior Department “provided additional documents to the USAO-DC indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings.”
DOJ said they “first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism” after reviewing more documents.
The Justice Department filing said that based on its review of evidence, “it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.”
A spokesperson for Pirro said the filing spoke for itself. Her office also moved to dismiss at least one of the other three misdemeanor cases that had been brought in connection with the Reflecting Pool.
I was under the impression there was ample visual evidence that the pool installation was clearly botched prior to the arrest of this Olympic athlete.
Therefore, I’m inclined to believe there’s something disingenuous about this response from the DOJ:
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
If the above assumption is true, I wonder if the Olympic athlete can file a legal complaint against the DOJ.
I was willing to believe the installation was botched until the Trump Administration said so. Now I’m convinced the installation was just overpriced, and the damage was done by Trump driving his motorcade down the middle before it was fully cured.
Driving an armored motorcade through it sure didn’t help, and the installation of lining doesn’t even address leakage or any issues with the pool anyway, just handing money to friends.
They used a fucking spray on truck bed liner…
Greenwater is as much a joke as whoever gave him the no-bid contract. Bed liner is ridiculous I didn’t even know that bit. There a source I can throw at people?
And then when blame time comes, throwing those friends under the motorcade.
Nah he rehired the same guy to redo it and for other projects around the district unfortunately.
And arresting someone several days after pieces were filmed floating in the water, and only dropping it when the masses wouldn’t blindly follow? That’s icing on the ‘we know what caused it’ cake.
The only people that vandalized it was Trump and his motorcade when they drove through the pool when it was empty.
The DOJ lawyers could be liable personally for sanctions if it turns out they already “knew” this information at the time they were presenting the case to the grand jury. Therefore the official story has to be that they didn’t “know.”
Sanctions could include things like monetary fines, referral to bar association discipline, and so forth. In the Chicago 6 case, the defendants were awarded their attorneys’ fees as a sanction after grand jury misconduct.
Probably so. and probably get a fat payout for malicious prosecution, which will be paid out with American taxpayer money, which evidently there is a endless amount of.