Key takeaways:
- White House officials asked the Justice Department to examine whether David Hearn could face new charges after prosecutors moved to dismiss his felony case.
- Prosecutors said new evidence showed damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was caused by a botched contractor installation and may have occurred before Hearn visited.
- A D.C. judge dismissed the case but has not decided whether it should be dismissed with or without prejudice, leaving the possibility of further proceedings unresolved.
White House officials have asked the Justice Department to examine whether prosecutors can bring a new criminal case against David Hearn, a former Olympian accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, after the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington moved to dismiss the case citing evidence that the damage was caused by a faulty installation rather than vandalism.
The request, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, came after President Donald Trump publicly criticized the dismissal and urged officials to revisit the case. According to CBS News, discussions between the White House and the Justice Department’s Criminal Division focused on whether the case could potentially be brought as a misdemeanor, which would not require a grand jury. A source told CBS the conversations were exploratory and no decision was made.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, had charged Hearn with felony destruction of government property, accusing him of causing more than $1,000 in damage to sealant recently installed at the bottom of the Reflecting Pool. The renovation project had been championed by Trump.
Pirro’s office moved to dismiss the indictment without prejudice earlier this month, a step that left open the possibility of bringing charges again. Prosecutors cited new information indicating that the damage resulted from a “botched installation” by a contractor. The Guardian reported that in a 20-page filing, Pirro’s office said it had received evidence that damage to the pool occurred before Hearn visited it and that “it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Hearn has said he reached into the water to touch a piece of already detached lining while he was on a bike ride in June, according to The Guardian.
Trump objected sharply to the dismissal. “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I don’t know what she was thinking?” In another post, he wrote that there “may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!” The Guardian reported that Trump also said Pirro “choked.”
After criticism from Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Pirro was seen visiting the White House carrying a box of evidence. CBS News reported, citing sources, that the boxes contained evidence collected from the Interior Department that exculpated Hearn and several others from criminal vandalism.
A D.C. Superior Court judge formally dismissed the case last week but did not decide whether the dismissal should be with or without prejudice, a question that could affect whether the felony case can be revived. Further briefing is scheduled for late summer and early fall.
After moving to dismiss Hearn’s charges, prosecutors also moved to drop misdemeanor charges against three other defendants accused of damaging the pool. They had been accused of destroying property valued at less than $1,000.
The Justice Department did not directly say whether it is considering new charges. “The Department of Justice follows the evidence when determining if crimes have been committed. We always evaluate any case based on the facts and the law,” a spokesperson told The Guardian.
Hearn’s attorneys criticized any effort to revive the case. Michael Bromwich told CBS News it was “truly difficult to understand the enormous effort apparently being spent on reviving a case that was dead on arrival.” He added, “The case was dismissed because there was no evidence to support charging Mr. Hearn. That won’t change with more people spending more time to figure out a way to salvage it.”
Lawyers Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann and Steve Levin told The Guardian that, if true, a White House request would be “another bizarre turn” and “further harass an innocent man.”
Todd Blanche, recently confirmed by the Senate, praised Pirro but declined to discuss the dismissal in detail. “I don’t approve or disapprove decisions that our US attorneys make in a general matter,” he said, “but I’m not going to talk about what we knew about the case or didn’t know about the case.”
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