Judge Permanently Dismisses Reflecting Pool Case, Says Trump Pressure on Prosecutors Left No Other Option

A Washington, D.C. judge put a permanent end Thursday to the criminal case against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, ruling that prosecutors cannot bring vandalism charges against him again, ever, over damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman dismissed the case "with prejudice" in a 26-page order, according to NPR, CNBC and NBC News. That legal term means the U.S. Attorney's Office for D.C., led by Jeanine Pirro, is permanently barred from recharging Hearn over the same conduct.

What actually happened to the pool

Trump championed a renovation of the Reflecting Pool earlier this year ahead of the nation's 250th anniversary celebrations, according to CBS News. He personally picked the sealant color, calling it "American Flag Blue," and touted it as "industrial-grade." The Daily Beast reported the project's price tag grew from roughly $1.5 million to more than $16 million after the contract went to a firm that had previously done work at one of Trump's golf courses.

The sealant began peeling almost immediately after installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, according to the New York Post. A National Park Service engineer flagged the lining peeling on its own as early as June 9, ten days before Hearn's arrest, the Post reported, even as the Interior Department later told prosecutors Hearn's conduct caused roughly $1,000 in damage.

Hearn, 67, says he was on a 64-mile bike ride through the capital on June 19 when he reached into the pool to touch a flapping piece of the new lining, then let go after a park worker told him to stop, according to CBS News and PBS. He was arrested, held for five hours, and indicted by a grand jury on one felony count of destruction of government property, carrying up to 10 years in prison.

Prosecutors reversed course, then got boxed in

On July 31, Pirro's office asked Judge Edelman to drop the charges, telling the court that new information from the Interior Department and National Park Service showed the damage was "the result of botched installation and not vandalism," per NPR. That was an admission from the government's own filing, not a dueling claim from Hearn's side.

Trump rejected that conclusion publicly and repeatedly. "There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!" he posted on Truth Social, according to the New York Post. He told reporters in the Oval Office on August 3 that Pirro "folded like an umbrella" and had "choked," and he brought up Hearn's past donations through ActBlue and the involvement of attorney Norm Eisen, a longtime Trump critic, according to The Hill and NBC News.

Pirro was summoned to a tense Oval Office meeting, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum denied his department had withheld evidence from prosecutors, PBS reported.

The government's argument, and why the judge rejected it

Pirro's office didn't want the case fully dead. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Spence told the court in September there was "a public interest in allowing a grand jury at a future date" to indict Hearn if new evidence emerged, according to CNBC. That's a real, defensible prosecutorial principle: keeping doors open for cases where facts are still developing is standard practice.

Edelman rejected it in this specific instance, not as a general rule. He wrote that the government's own representations about future evidence were "theoretical at best, and more likely, is simply fanciful," and that prosecutors had acknowledged in court they had no additional evidence against Hearn, only a wish to "reserve the option," The Hill reported.

The judge, an Obama appointee, wrote that Hearn faced a "unique possibility" that the case would be revived "based on political pressure brought by the President of the United States upon his subordinate officers," and that the government "has no right to retain the ability to compound the errors it has already made... at Mr. Hearn's expense."

Reactions

Hearn's attorneys, Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann, Steve Levin and Michael Bromwich, called the ruling "a victory for the rule of law and for an innocent American seeking justice" in a joint statement. "This case never should have been brought in the first place," they said, calling it "a miscarriage of justice."

The White House, asked for comment by NPR, pointed only to three of Trump's August Truth Social posts blaming vandals and criticizing Pirro's original decision to drop the charges. The U.S. Attorney's Office and DOJ did not respond to requests for comment from multiple outlets, including NPR and CNBC.

What's unresolved

The Reflecting Pool remains fenced off and empty, and the White House has not given a timeline for completing repairs, according to PBS and The Daily Beast. No source indicates DOJ plans to appeal Edelman's ruling. Pirro's job status, which appeared uncertain in August after Trump's public criticism, has not been addressed in any court filing or statement since. Whether the president's public pressure campaign has any further consequence for her tenure as U.S. Attorney remains an open question.