{"id":398155,"date":"2026-08-05T08:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T08:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/398155\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T08:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T08:28:09","slug":"lawyers-in-reflecting-pool-case-say-justice-department-knew-case-was-flawed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/398155\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyers in Reflecting Pool case say Justice Department knew case was flawed"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Justice Department knew or should have known for weeks that its case against a former Olympian charged with intentionally damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was flawed, and that he bore no responsibility for longstanding problems at the landmark, defense lawyers said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro on Friday moved to dismiss the indictment against David Hearn, saying in a 20-page filing that newly produced evidence from the Interior Department showed the former Olympic canoeist was not responsible for damage to the pool’s lining.<\/p>\n

Pirro\u2019s office attributed the damage instead to a botched installation by a contractor as well as \u201cthe rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration\u201d in the weeks surrounding July 4, as directed by President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for Hearn on Tuesday urged a judge to permanently dismiss the case<\/a> and foreclose the possibility that the Trump administration could revive it. They took issue with Pirro’s assertion that prosecutors only recently learned about the pre-existing defects at the pool, saying the government had \u201cdisregarded readily available evidence\u201d that the liner was already failing because of installation flaws.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the outset, the evidence showed that the pool liner was already failing and that Mr. Hearn did not cause the damage alleged in the indictment,” Hearn’s legal team argued in a 28-page motion filed Tuesday in D.C. Superior Court.<\/p>\n

The poor condition of the pool was \u201cplainly visible\u201d for weeks and was publicly documented through photographs, video and news reports, the lawyers wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefying both decency and common sense, the government proceeded to indict Mr. Hearn before it had obtained or evaluated the information necessary to establish a good-faith basis for the charge,\u201d the defense attorneys wrote.<\/p>\n

In addition, they say, the government’s key eyewitness was never presented to the grand jury, and a key prosecution witness on the question of damages \u201cstated that the repairs at issue would have been necessary regardless of Mr. Hearn’s alleged conduct and could not identify any additional cost caused by Mr. Hearn.\u201d<\/p>\n

The contractor, Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings<\/a>, \u201cpublicly acknowledged, before Mr. Hearn was indicted, that portions of the project required repair,\u201d the lawyers said. The firm was awarded a $14.7 million no-bid contract to repaint and waterproof the pool’s concrete floor.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Pirro\u2019s office did not immediately return a message seeking comment.<\/p>\n

Trump continued to insist on Tuesday night that the pool had been vandalized and defended the contractors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did a beautiful job,” Trump said. “There were a couple of little things, but that was not a big deal. And everybody saw the vandalism. All you have to do is look at the tape.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president said that Pirro was \u201ctotally wrong.\u201d Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has backed Trump’s claims that vandals damaged the pool.<\/p>\n

The dismissal of charges against Hearn was an embarrassing setback for the Justice Department and marked a rare moment during Trump\u2019s second term of an aide or political appointee openly defying him.<\/p>\n

Hearn has said he was on a bike ride June 19 when he reached in to examine the pool\u2019s newly peeled coating and briefly touched a chunk attached to the side of the pool. But he said he obeyed a park worker who told him to let go of it.<\/p>\n

Felony charges, including a possible 10-year prison sentence, were brought \u201cwithout a meaningful investigation into the central and obvious question in this case: whether Mr. Hearn caused, or even could have caused, any damage to the Reflecting Pool,” Hearn’s lawyers said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Justice Department knew or should have known for weeks that its case against a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[139767,32533,145,84860,99692,23681,59373,86795,59371,59372,61262,139766,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-398155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-david-hearn","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-doug-burgum","tag-jeanine-pirro","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30117-ap-washington-dc-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-reflecting-pool-charges-david-hearn-trump-pirro","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}