The White House is pushing the Justice Department to revive a discredited case against an innocent man accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool as Donald Trump continues to fume over the debacle.
One day after Todd Blanche was sworn in to lead the Justice Department, White House officials have reportedly asked the DOJ to consider a new prosecution against Olympic canoeist David Hearn, despite the earlier case being thrown out.
Trump’s handpicked U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro dropped the charges against Hearn earlier this month after finding damage to the iconic landmark wasn’t caused by vandalism at all, but rather by a botched job from Trump’s own contractor.
But according to the Wall Street Journal, the department is now exploring whether another type of case could be mounted, potentially based on lower-level misdemeanor allegations.
The move is yet another attempt by the president and his team to blame vandals for damaging one of his most talked-up vanity projects, which has now ballooned in taxpayer costs from about $1.5 million to more than $15 million.
But Hearn’s defense team has lashed out at the White House and vowed to fight any attempt to revive the matter.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, the Olympian’s co-counsel, Norm Eisen of Democracy Defenders Fund, Mary Dohrmann of Washington Litigation Group, and Steve Levin of Steptoe LLP, said that, “if true, it would mark a shocking first: a case that the DOJ lost by its own admission because it lacked the evidence to convict returning from the dead.”
“This would add another bizarre turn to a sad chapter in the DOJ’s history and further harass an innocent man,” they said.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment. It has yet to answer but has not denied approaching the department to reconsider the case.
The Reflecting Pool revamp was meant to be finished in time for America’s 250th birthday celebrations on July 4, with Trump giving the job to a contractor who had helped repair a pool at his Virginia golf course.
But instead of creating a clean pool with an “American flag blue” surface, the landmark became an algae-infested mess, and in turn, a national embarrassment.
Trump insisted “sick people” took to the pool with a “box cutter or a knife”, and he took particular aim at Hearn, who he branded as a Democrat supporter determined to wreck the landmark.
Pirro, who prosecutes cases in the District of Columbia, initially charged the former Olympian, claiming that witnesses saw him “forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner” of the pool.
However, the former Fox host ended up dropping the charges, in a stunning reversal that almost led to her being fired.
“I was disappointed with Jeanine Pirro,” Trump fumed at the time, declaring his MAGA prosecutor had “choked”.
“Really disappointed with Jeanine Pirro. She folded like an umbrella.”
Pirro, however, has stood by her decision and reportedly pushed back during a private meeting with the president and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who has continued to endorse Trump’s claims of vandalism.
It was also revealed that Pirro’s office did not even get key evidence from his department until after the indictment, despite repeatedly asking, and once those records finally arrived, they undercut the entire case.
She has also dropped charges against three other individuals previously accused of damaging the pool: Justin Carreno, Sophie Dennison-Gibby, and Cameron Thiers.
However, while the case against Hearn was dismissed, the judge left one question open: whether it was with or without prejudice.
“Without prejudice” means he could be charged again whenever the president wants, said Eisen.
“We are asking the court to close that door,” the attorney told MSNBC.
Any attempt to revive charges would now test Trump’s newly sworn-in Attorney General Todd Blanche, who has spent weeks trying to allay Senate concerns that he is too willing to bend Trump’s will.
According to the Journal, the new discussions haven’t reached his level yet, instead taking place within the Justice Department’s criminal division.
Blanche was only narrowly confirmed over the weekend on a 50-49 vote, and sworn in at a closed-door Oval Office ceremony on Monday.
Trump, meanwhile, continues to push the matter on social media.
“A National Park Service career employee, a highly credible witness, saw David Hearn (ActBlue) in broad daylight vandalize the Reflecting Pool by “violently” ripping and tugging at the Pool’s somewhat delicate coating,“ he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.
But he also acknowledged: “There was also some contractor error done by rushing the job for a July 4th opening, but it was a very small area of this massive Pool, and was relatively inconsequential.”
“Security cameras have been, and are being, installed. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
