{"id":797884,"date":"2026-08-01T18:52:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T18:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/797884\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T18:52:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T18:52:18","slug":"trumps-reflecting-pool-debacle-takes-a-predictably-scandalous-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/797884\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Reflecting Pool debacle takes a predictably scandalous turn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Nothing about what happened Friday, when the Justice Department dropped its case against a purported Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool vandal<\/a>, was completely surprising.\n <\/p>\n

\n But that\u2019s also what makes it so scandalous.\n <\/p>\n

\n The administration was pressed repeatedly about the possibility that the damage to the Reflecting Pool wasn\u2019t caused by vandals. Maybe it was just shoddy installation from the no-bid contractor<\/a> that President Donald Trump hired. Maybe it was just a rushed job, reporters posited, given Trump wanted the pool ready for Independence Day celebrations.\n <\/p>\n

\n But the administration repeatedly and forcefully rejected these theories, straining to claim the damage was actually the work of radical-left vandals bent on destroying our country\u2019s precious monuments. It said this was proven and documented. And it eventually brought a high-profile case against someone \u2013 former Olympic canoeist David Hearn \u2013 who has spent that last month fending off a potential felony conviction.\n <\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

\n The government moved to drop that case in typical Friday news-dump fashion, when many people have already tuned out for the weekend. And in doing so, it made some major admissions.\n <\/p>\n

\n Basically, the Justice Department said this was exactly what it seemed to be \u2013 that the damage \u201cwas the result of a botched installation and not vandalism.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Furthermore, it pointed the finger at the Department of Interior for willfully withholding information that would have demonstrated that fact and prevented the case from ever being brought.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cDOI provided less than fulsome information at the outset of this case,\u201d the DOJ said in its filing<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n It added: \u201cHad DOI been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In normal times, all of that would be the stuff of major investigations and even congressional inquiries. According to Trump\u2019s own administration, other parts of the government withheld information, allowing for an unwarranted criminal case to be brought against an innocent man. And the DOJ brought a clearly shoddy case without getting all the information first.\n <\/p>\n

\n And all, it bears emphasizing, while furthering Trump\u2019s political goals. Trump started claiming vandalism in mid-June after his coveted Reflecting Pool renovation began to quickly deteriorate \u2013 raising even more questions about his handling of the situation<\/a>. It looks a lot like yet another hasty prosecution brought for Trump\u2019s political purposes has fallen apart.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump, though, doubled down on the claim vandals damaged the pool, writing on social media Saturday, \u201cI disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what she was thinking? 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. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!\u201d the president wrote on Truth Social<\/a>, appearing to link the vandalism claim to the mysterious etching of \u201c8647\u201d<\/a> that appeared on the grass of the National Mall in June.\n <\/p>\n

\n But it\u2019s also worth just reflecting on how dishonestly and overzealously the administration prosecuted this case in public.\n <\/p>\n

\n Over and over, it claimed things that have now been directly undermined by the new DOJ filing. And when pressed on alternative explanations that have now borne out, it flatly rejected them.\n <\/p>\n

\n Shortly after Trump first raised the specter of vandals being responsible, a reporter in June asked him if it might just be the contractor\u2019s fault.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cNo, no, vandals,\u201d Trump said, claiming they had cut a \u201c300-foot slit\u201d in the pool\n <\/p>\n

\n When a reporter suggested it was odd that someone could vandalize the pool in such a way, given the \u201cNational Guard and police have been all over the Mall,\u201d Trump assured there was proof.\n <\/p>\n

\"Members<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI can\u2019t help it if somebody goes in with a knife and starts hacking it up,\u201d Trump added. \u201cAnd we also have pictures of it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Those pictures never arrived. (In fact, the DOJ didn\u2019t even accuse Hearn of using a sharp object.)\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump went on to claim these were \u201cthugs,\u201d \u201csick people,\u201d \u201cpeople that want to destroy our country,\u201d \u201cRadical Left SCUM that hate our Country<\/a>\u201d and \u201cCountry hating sleazebags.\u201d The length of the supposed slit in the pool gradually grew from 300 feet to 300 yards<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n Hearn was eventually indicted on July 2<\/a>. It was the only felony vandalism case, upgraded from a misdemeanor when the government claimed he caused at least $1,000 in damage. (The government also dropped at least two of the three misdemeanor charges it brought against other people.) And Pirro decided to hold a press conference.\n <\/p>\n

\n When a reporter asked Pirro whether the pool was \u201cprobably damaged before\u201d the Hearn incident, she repeatedly rejected the premise.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOh, he damaged it,\u201d Pirro said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut do you believe it had already been damaged before?\u201d she was asked.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cHe damaged the pool,\u201d Pirro said again.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBefore he touched it?\u201d she was asked.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cHe damaged the pool,\u201d she repeated.\n <\/p>\n

\n In a later appearance on Fox News (where Pirro worked before becoming a the DC US attorney), host Jesse Watters told Pirro, \u201cA lot of people, when this first happened with the pool, didn\u2019t believe the president that there was vandalism.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Pirro scoffed audibly.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhen these anarchists come \u2013 and we have witnesses \u2013 they\u2019re like, \u2018oh, we didn\u2019t do anything,\u2019\u201d she said, adding that the vandals act like \u201cthey have the right to destroy a monument.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cNo, you don\u2019t,\u201d Pirro said emphatically.\n <\/p>\n

\n A few days later, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum talked about the situation on the Sunday shows, with CNN\u2019s Dana Bash noting that the Reflecting Pool had already appeared to be peeling before Hearn arrived.\n <\/p>\n

\n Burgum responded: \u201cIt didn\u2019t peel off. There was vandalism. There was box cutters.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAnd you\u2019re 100% sure that what happened with the liner was vandalism? You can prove it?\u201d Bash responded.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOh, yes absolutely, Dana,\u201d Burgum said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Burgum went on: \u201cI\u2019m not sure why you and others in the media think that you want to keep trying to question whether or not \u2026 this is an industrial liner.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

\n He added: \u201cLiterally, it would never just like peel off or fall off.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The Justice Department now says that Burgum\u2019s department was already in possession of information saying that\u2019s exactly what happened \u2013 that it had this information nearly a month earlier and withheld it.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAlmost immediately after work was initially completed, peeling was observed along the pool perimeter,\u201d the new DOJ filing said. \u201cThe NPS engineer\u2019s June 11, 2026, email stated that the cause of the damage was contractor error via \u2018overspray.\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In the end, this appears to be exactly what it looked like in real time: A bunch of people straining to avoid the evidence right in front of their eyes in order to turn the president\u2019s politically expedient fantasy into a reality.\n <\/p>\n

\n Even, it turns out, if it risked throwing an innocent man in prison.\n <\/p>\n

\n This story was updated with additional information.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nothing about what happened Friday, when the Justice Department dropped its case against a purported Lincoln Memorial Reflecting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-797884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}