President Trump publicly broke with his own U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro, after prosecutors moved to dismiss a felony vandalism charge against former Olympian David Hearn, a case that collapsed when the Interior Department's own records showed a contractor's botched work caused the damage.
Trump took to Truth Social on Saturday to voice his disagreement, calling the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool "a pure case of VANDALISM" and questioning Pirro's judgment. His post came one day after the Justice Department filed to drop the felony destruction of property charge against Hearn, a former U.S. Olympic canoeist who had faced up to 10 years in prison.
The dismissal landed after prosecutors discovered that the Department of the Interior had withheld critical evidence. Newly produced documents, 695 megabytes' worth, the New York Post reported, revealed that the pool's liner damage stemmed from a rushed, flawed installation by contractor Atlantic Industrial Coatings, not from anyone tearing it up. The lining began peeling just two days after work was completed on June 9, well before Hearn was ever arrested.
Pirro's office did not hold back about who was at fault for the failed prosecution. In the court filing seeking dismissal, prosecutors stated that the Interior Department had initially told them "nearly all of the damage" to the Reflecting Pool was caused by vandalism. Only after the grand jury indictment was already in hand did Interior begin producing the records that told a different story.
Pirro's office said it had reached out to Interior "dozens and dozens of times" seeking information. Reuters reported that Interior only "slowly started trickling information" to prosecutors after repeated requests, withholding evidence that would have prevented the indictment from ever being sought.
The filing laid out what the belated document production revealed. Prosecutors wrote:
"Specifically, the newly released documents reveal that work on installing the lining almost immediately fell behind, due to a combination of very rainy and windy weather, repeated failures of testing on the sealing of the expansion joints, and delays in obtaining sealing product at the worksite."
Pirro's office also noted that the pool section Hearn was accused of tampering with was not even in the area where the vandalism likely occurred. A National Park Service engineer had raised concerns about the liner peeling days before Hearn was arrested, a fact that further undercut the government's theory. Pirro herself stated that given the new information, it was "difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt."
Hearn had pleaded not guilty. He maintained he was merely examining a section of liner that was already detached, not destroying it. Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the contractor that received a no-bid contract worth more than $14 million to coat the pool, has not been publicly held to account for the work.
None of that satisfied the president. Trump posted on Truth Social:
"I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don't 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!"
Trump acknowledged "some contractor difficulty" but drew a sharp line, insisting the "major damage" was deliberate. He pointed to vandalism beyond the pool itself, including the message "86 47" carved into the surrounding grass, a detail the prosecutors' filing did not address. The president's public rebuke of his own appointee was unusual in its directness.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum backed Trump's position. Burgum posted on X that his department had provided Pirro's office with "expert and eyewitness testimony to the damage done by vandals" and said some acts of vandalism "were even caught on camera." He added:
"We won't back down to deranged people who want to destroy, deface, or degrade our monuments."
Burgum's claim that Interior cooperated fully sits in tension with Pirro's filing, which described an agency that slow-walked documents and initially mischaracterized the nature of the damage. The Interior Department told prosecutors one thing, that vandals caused nearly all the harm, then produced records showing a contractor's shoddy, rushed work was the real culprit.
Hearn's defense team did not treat the dismissal as a quiet resolution. Attorneys Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann, and Steve Levin issued a statement calling the prosecution an "abuse of government power." Fox News reported their full statement:
"The Trump administration's case against Davey Hearn should never have been brought. Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology."
The lawyers also said the government's approach was "ready, fire, aim", a pointed summary of a prosecution built on incomplete information from the very agency that was supposed to be the victim.
Pirro has faced scrutiny on other fronts as well. Defense attorneys in a separate case, a shooting near the White House, have demanded she step aside from that prosecution, raising broader questions about her office's handling of high-profile Washington cases.
Beyond Hearn, three other individuals were connected to the Reflecting Pool cases. Justin Carreno, 47, had his misdemeanor destruction of property charge dismissed on the same Friday. Sophie Dennison-Gibby, 49, and Cameron Thiers, 26, still face pending misdemeanor charges. The nature of their alleged conduct has not been publicly detailed.
The Reflecting Pool renovation was part of the Trump administration's broader effort to revitalize the nation's capital. Pirro had previously pledged aggressive prosecution against anyone who damaged the pool, a promise that now looks premature given her own office's admission that the evidence did not support the charges.
Atlantic Industrial Coatings landed the no-bid contract, worth more than $14 million, to coat the pool. The liner began peeling two days after the job was finished. The Washington Examiner reported that the damage was ultimately determined to result from the contractor's flawed installation, not intentional destruction.
So a rushed job by a contractor on a no-bid deal produced a peeling liner, and the government's first instinct was to charge a former Olympian with a felony. Interior pointed the finger at vandals. Prosecutors built a case on that claim. And when the records finally surfaced, the whole thing fell apart.
The episode raises questions that remain unanswered. Who at Interior decided to withhold records from prosecutors? Why did the agency initially blame vandals when its own engineers had flagged the peeling before Hearn was ever on the scene? And will anyone at Atlantic Industrial Coatings, or the officials who awarded a $14 million no-bid contract for work that failed in 48 hours, face consequences?
Trump is right that vandalism at the Reflecting Pool is a serious matter, and Burgum's references to camera footage and other incidents suggest the broader problem may be real. But charging a man with a felony that could have put him in prison for a decade, based on evidence an agency withheld and facts that did not hold up, is not accountability. It is the kind of government overreach conservatives are supposed to oppose, no matter who sits in the Oval Office.
When the government cannot keep its own house in order, when one agency misleads another and an innocent man gets indicted, blaming the prosecutor who cleaned up the mess misses the target. The real failure sat inside the Interior Department the entire time.