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.
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.