The Department of Justice dropped charges late Friday against an Olympic canoeist accused of vandalizing the National Mall’s Reflecting Pool and instead dismissed another Trump administration department’s claims over its condition.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro filed a motion to dismiss her office’s July 2 second-degree felony indictment against three-time Olympian David Hearn, 67, NBC News reported. Hearn was arrested in June by U.S. Park Police (USPP) after officers spotted him inspecting the iconic pool’s apparently peeling lining. In her motion, Pirro — a former Fox News host and noted ally of President Donald Trump — said the Department of the Interior (DOI), which oversees the USPP, had presented a misleading case to the Justice Department (DOJ).
Trump, shortly thereafter, doubled down on the argument that the pool’s condition was “VANDALISM [sic],” indicating he disagreed “100%” with his appointee in a Saturday post to Truth Social.
“Based upon the initial reports provided by the [DOI] and the [USPP], the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia (“USAO-DC”) presented the grand jury with evidence that damage to the Reflecting Pool was caused by vandals, including the defendant in this case, David Hearn,” Pirro wrote in the Friday filing.
At a July 2 press conference announcing her office’s indictment of Hearn, the U.S. attorney had declared the retired canoeist “willfully destroyed property” at the pool and “ripped a piece of recently installed sealant.”
Pirro, however, has reversed course, writing in her Friday motion that the Reflecting Pool’s extreme state of disrepair was not caused by vandalism, as the DOI claimed. Instead, she said, it was “the result of a botched installation” she noted was rushed in order for it to be completed in time for the country’s 250th birthday on July 4.
The judge-turned-U.S. attorney also stated it was not until after Hearn’s indictment was returned “that the DOI provided additional documents” to her office showing the party responsible for the pool’s damage was Atlantic Industrial Coatings (AIC), the contractor handling its renovation. Pirro concluded that AIC went about the repairs in a “flawed” manner.
The White House referred the Daily Caller News Foundation to Trump’s Truth Social post when asked for comment. Neither Pirro’s office, the DOI, nor Hearn’s attorney, Norm Eisen, immediately responded to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
Pirro also wrote that her office was not aware of evidence the “botched installation” and not vandalism was to blame for the pool’s sudden aesthetic deterioration until the DOI shared these documents.
“Because these recently-produced materials significantly undermine the evidentiary basis for the indictment initially supplied by the DOI and [USPP], the USAO-DC respectfully moves to dismiss the indictment without prejudice,” her motion concludes.
Trump, however, pushed back against his longtime ally’s conclusion, writing on his preferred social media platform, “There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!”
“I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro … on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking?” the president wrote on Truth Social. “To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM, that included the grass, which had a big 86 47 emblazoned in giant letters on it, and other elements of the surrounding area.”
The numerical phrase — which many Trump supporters believe constitutes a threat to assassinate the president — was found graffitied on the Reflecting Pool in May and marking a section of the nearby National Mall’s grass the following month. In the service industry, the term “86,” is widely used as a euphemism to mean kicking out a customer or denying them service. Trump, during his second term, is the 47th president of the United States.
The president and his DOI secretary, Doug Burgum, have long maintained that alleged vandals were responsible for the pool’s new “American flag blue” paint job peeling in sheets. The pool has simultaneously turned green due to an immense algae bloom — a phenomenon which has caused pro-algae protestors to flock to its side.
Burgum’s DOI had, in April, doled out a $6.9 million no-bid contract to AIC, The New York Times reported in April.
When a party makes a no-bid contract, it approaches one entity without fielding competing offers. The federal government usually pursues such contracts in cases of emergency or extreme urgency, the outlet noted in its May report. White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers had told the outlet at the time that the Pool’s remodeling was “being completed at ‘Trump speed’” to ensure it was ready for July 4.
Hearn, a native of the Washington area and a member of the U.S. canoe slalom team during the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Summer Olympics, has maintained his innocence following his arrest and indictment.
Shortly after his arrest by the USPP, the canoeist told The Washington Post in June had been taking a long bicycle ride when he stopped at the Pool to take a look at a sheet he claimed was “already peeling” from its bottom.
“I reached in there, and I was able to grab the end of that flapping piece,” he told the outlet. “It was still attached to the bottom. I didn’t remove anything. I didn’t vandalize anything. I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything.”
(DCNF)
