President Donald Trump made an unusual and unfounded claim amidst his complaints about the Reflecting Pool prosecution of former Olympic canoeist David Hearn being dropped — that there was video evidence of an actual perpetrator committing the vandalism.
This is not true. His own Department of Justice already admitted that, in writing.
The president’s attempts to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool have been a months-long source of frustration for him, as the project has been plagued by bright green algae and peeling paint, which Trump and others in his administration have claimed was caused by vandals. These claims were swiftly met with a high level of skepticism by the media and local D.C. residents, but the DOJ made several arrests nonetheless.
One of those arrested was Hearn, who was hit with a felony charge for destruction of government property when he stopped at the Reflecting Pool to check it out after a bicycle ride. Hearn steadfastly maintained his innocence, pleading not guilty and telling media that he “didn’t destroy or break or peel anything” and had only “grab[bed] the end of that flapping piece, the already peeling piece,” left it “still attached to the bottom,” and “didn’t remove anything.”
In a motion filed on July 27, Hearn’s attorneys argued that “the Government’s sole grand-jury witness on damages testified that the property was already damaged before Mr. Hearn allegedly touched it; that the same repairs would have been required regardless of Mr. Hearn’s conduct; and that he could not quantify any loss attributable to that conduct.”
On July 31, the DOJ dismissed the indictment against Hearn, admitting in its motion that it had relied on claims from the Department of the Interior that “the damage was caused entirely by vandals, including [Hearn],” but after the indictment, DOI then “provided additional documents” that revealed “the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by DOI.”
Specifically, the new documents from DOI “indicated a rushed and flawed installation process, with repeated failures of the lining during the installation process, and extensive peeling of the lining throughout the Reflecting Pool,” the DOJ’s motion stated, further pointing out that prosecutors had conducted “a recent visual inspection [that] showed damage throughout the Reflecting Pool, even in the middle of the pool, where a vandal would not likely attempt to peel the lining.”
“Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt,” the motion concluded, asking the judge to dismiss the indictment.
Trump did not take kindly to the case being dropped by his appointee, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, posting on Truth Social that he “disagree[d] 100%” with her decision and sharing a video that he claimed showed “the VANDALISM that took place at the Reflecting Pool.”
“The material is being cut with a knife or a box cutter, for all to see!” he wrote.
This is not true. The video is grainy and from a distance, but there is no moment that shows someone with a “knife or box cutter.”
Several times during the clip, like in the screenshot below, people can be seen kneeling by the side of the pool and reaching into the water with their hands, sometimes pulling up something. But they aren’t holding knives and they’re doing this in full view of multiple National Park Service employees visibly working in the area.
Screenshot via Truth Social.
Trump again lambasted Pirro during a presser at the Oval Office Monday, saying “she folded like an umbrella,” and he also repeated the false claim there was video evidence of someone “cutting it with a box knife.”
“We did a great job,” Trump bragged about the Reflecting Pool work, describing how the granite had been “sandblasted” and then a “very expensive material” had been “put on top of the surface that always leaked,” and then “it was beautiful.”
“Now,” the president continued, “we have photographs or tapes, like moving cameras, right? We have them where people are on the side, cutting it with a box knife.”
This is not true.
He repeated his claim later in the presser:
And we had to replace cut areas where they cut it and ripped it. But there’s a tape — and [Fox News host] Jesse Watters, by the way, did a whole big thing on it — there’s a tape out that’s out there that I posted on Truth, where you have people leaning over the side, the weakest part, because of the flexibility. You know, it moves. It’s very complicated. It moves. And the softest part has to be flexible. And that’s the stuff you can cut. And these guys knew what they were doing and they cut all the way along the base, cut, cut, cut…
That was working beautifully. And it was vandalized. And if you look at the tape — now, the tape isn’t a great tape in the sense that, it’s a little hard to say who exactly it was. But it was people cutting this very expensive material, waterproofing material.
Anyway, it looked beautiful. And then they cut it. And they vandalized it. We weren’t necessarily thrilled with the contractor. But they did a job and they were fixing any problems.
This is not true. No such video exists showing people “cutting” the Reflecting Pool material. That is not what is shown by the video Trump posted on Truth Social and not what the DOJ entered into evidence in Hearn’s case.
Most importantly for the case at hand, the video does not show David Hearn.
Neither the prosecution nor defense disputed the timeline of events that Hearn was on a bicycle ride, alone, when he stopped by the Reflecting Pool. The clip Trump posted shows a group of people walking up to the edge of the pool on foot; none have bicycles nor do they match Hearn’s appearance.
Even if the video had shown people “cutting” the material — which, again, it does not — that would have zero relevance in the prosecution of Hearn, except as exculpatory evidence, to be used to show that other people were responsible for the vandalism Hearn was accused of committing.
With Trump himself so vociferously insisting the Reflecting Pool problems were caused by a vandal (and not the no-bid contract he awarded to someone who had done work for him before), if the DOJ had any photos or video whatsoever that showed Hearn or others actually there slicing away with a box knife, there is no way they would not have been quickly entered into evidence (and likely blasted to the media as well).
It would be good for the White House Press Corps to ask the president why he thinks that the Reflecting Pool video shows people “cutting it with a box knife” when it does not, and, even if it had, why anything other people are doing in that video should have had any bearing on the case against Hearn.
Why is this important?
Admittedly, the whole kerfuffle has had a humorous and absurdist element to it, after all. Commentators like Nate Silver have dismissed it as a “boring and dumb” story.
But the fundamental issue here is that the President of the United States demanded someone take the blame for a problem that was embarrassing him, and his appointees at his Department of Justice tried to prosecute a U.S. citizen and former Olympian with a felony, threatening Hearn with years behind bars, plus the financial cost and stress that result from being charged with a federal crime.
The President of the United States wanted to send a U.S. citizen to prison for something that not only he did not do, but that did not happen.
And it sounds like Trump still wants Hearn to be prosecuted.
America is currently dealing with ongoing inflation, a measles outbreak, worrying about eating lettuce because of the cyclospora parasite, a war in Iran, a contentious battle over how our immigration policies should be enforced, and numerous other issues.
No one should have to worry about getting falsely named and prosecuted as a scapegoat to take the blame for the Trump administration’s foibles, failures, and falsehoods.
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
The post Trump Is Literally Claiming There’s Video from the Reflecting Pool of Someone ‘Cutting It With a Box Knife’ Even After DOJ Gave Up first appeared on Mediaite.
