{"id":19609,"date":"2026-07-28T07:14:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T02:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=19609"},"modified":"2026-07-28T07:14:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T02:14:41","slug":"trump-dojs-own-witness-said-reflecting-pool-had-substantial-preexisting-damage-before-alleged-vandal-touched-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=19609","title":{"rendered":"Trump DOJ\u2019s Own Witness Said Reflecting Pool Had \u2018Substantial Preexisting Damage\u2019 Before Alleged Vandal Touched It"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5736274\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5736274\" class=\"wp-image-5736274 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/am14.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/06\/pool-2-1200x800.jpeg\" alt=\"Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5736274\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Lawyers for <strong>David Hearn<\/strong>, the former Olympian who was arrested and accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool, filed a motion Monday citing key testimony they say supports dismissing their client&#8217;s case &#8212; from a witness for the prosecution.<\/p>\n<p>President<strong> Donald Trump<\/strong> has been infuriated by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/reflecting-pool-is-now-under-siege-by-a-different-and-more-aggressive-form-of-algae-report\/\">troubles<\/a> plaguing\u00a0the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/photo-of-felon-who-whiffed-on-reflecting-pool-renovation-likens-him-to-mobster-comic-book-villain\/\">work he has directed<\/a> for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/trump-threatened-10-years-in-prison-for-vandalizing-reflecting-pool-but-protester-who-spray-painted-lincoln-memorial-got-zero-jail-time\/\">bright green algae<\/a> and peeling paint. Trump and others in his administration have claimed the problems have been caused by vandals; these claims have been met with much skepticism by the media and local D.C. residents, but several arrests have been made nonetheless.<\/p>\n<p>One of these arrests was Hearn, who was hit with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/former-olympian-charged-with-vandalism-after-he-said-he-checked-out-the-peeling-blue-bottom-of-the-reflecting-pool\/\">charge<\/a> for destruction of government property when he stopped at the Reflecting Pool to check it out after a bicycle ride.<\/p>\n<p>Hearn has maintained his innocence, telling\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/nation\/2026\/06\/20\/cyclist-arrested-reflecting-pool-denies-trump-vandalism-claims\/?utm_campaign=wp_main&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Washington Post<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0\u201cI reached in there, and I was able to grab the end of that flapping piece, the already peeling piece. It was still attached to the bottom. I didn\u2019t remove anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t vandalize anything,\u201d he insisted. \u201cI didn\u2019t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/lawyer-for-ex-olympian-charged-with-vandalizing-reflecting-pool-warns-every-american-is-at-risk\/\"><strong>Norm Eisen<\/strong><\/a> with the group Democracy Defenders Fund, <strong>Mary Dohrmann<\/strong> with the Washington Litigation Group, and<strong> Steve Levin <\/strong>from Steptoe LLC are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/crime\/lawyer-for-olympian-arrested-for-vandalizing-reflecting-pool-vows-hell-fight-the-charges-touching-water-is-not-a-crime\/\">representing<\/a> Hearn, who\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/just-in-ex-olympian-pleads-not-guilty-to-vandalizing-dc-reflecting-pool\/\">pleaded not guilty<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/28517032-hearn-filing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">motion<\/a> filed on Monday, Hearn&#8217;s attorneys sought the disclosure of &#8220;the legal instructions provided to the grand jury concerning the elements of the charged offense&#8221; against their client, because they were challenging whether the grand jury was given &#8220;legally sufficient evidence&#8221; and &#8220;was properly instructed&#8221; on an &#8220;essential element&#8221; of the charge, specifically the &#8220;amount of loss.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The felony charge against Hearn requires the government to show damages of $1,000 or more, the attorneys noted, and a misdemeanor charge requires showing damage of &#8220;some value.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But that&#8217;s not what the witness presented by prosecutors with Trump&#8217;s DOJ, a National Park Service official, said in his testimony, the lawyers argued; they were given a copy of his transcript as part of the prosecution&#8217;s required document production.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Here, based on the discovery provided to date, the Government&#8217;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&#8217;s conduct; and that he could not quantify any loss attributable to that conduct,&#8221; they wrote.<\/p>\n<p>This sole witness&#8217; testimony &#8220;raises a substantial question whether the grand jury had legally sufficient evidence of the loss element necessary, to support the indictment and whether the grand jury was properly instructed on that element,&#8221; the attorneys continued, adding that &#8220;other irregularities in the government&#8217;s presentation of the evidence to the grand jury further call into question whether the grand jury was misled in a manner that substantially influenced the decision to indict and prejudiced Mr. Hearn.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The motion noted that grand jury proceedings are not normally disclosed and are &#8220;presumptively secret,&#8221; but a defendant in a federal criminal case can move to have them disclosed if it can be shown that &#8220;a ground may exist to dismiss the indictment because of a matter that occurred before the grand jury.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The lawyers clarified they were seeking to determine one issue: &#8220;whether the grand jury was correctly instructed on the legal measure of the loss element that elevated this charge to a felony.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That one issue is a critically important one, because it can be enough to get the entire case dismissed. Hearn&#8217;s lawyers cited case law precedent finding that dismissal is warranted if there is a &#8220;material error or omission in the legal instructions given to a grand jury&#8230;where the error substantially influenced the decision to indict or created grave doubt that the decision was free from that influence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The key with a charge of malicious destruction of property, the lawyers argued, is that the damages are calculated based on restoring the property to the condition it was &#8220;immediately before&#8221; the alleged conduct by the defendant occurred, and <em>not<\/em> the &#8220;cost of remedying every defect found in the property&#8221; afterwards.<\/p>\n<p>The National Park Service official who testified before the grand jury was the &#8220;sole witness concerning loss,&#8221; the lawyers wrote, but &#8220;did not identify or quantify such a loss.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The NPS official testified the pool &#8220;had substantial preexisting damage requiring repair before any alleged conduct by Mr. Hearn,&#8221; the motion stated &#8212; including &#8220;leaking more than one million gallons of water per week; its expansion joints had exceeded their service life; and the liner already contained a rip&#8221; &#8212; but &#8220;could not identify the repairs necessary to address damage allegedly caused by Mr. Hearn.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to Hearn&#8217;s lawyers, the government had claimed an &#8220;estimated repair range&#8221; of &#8220;$6,000 to $15,000,&#8221; but the NPS official was not able to attribute any of that to Hearn, or otherwise &#8220;identify any additional cost caused by Mr. Hearn&#8217;s alleged conduct.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Indeed, the witness did not even say or suggest that the alleged conduct had compromised the liner at all,&#8221; the lawyers added, and he &#8220;never quantified or otherwise testified to the cost of damage allegedly attributable to Mr. Hearn.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, the attorneys argued, &#8220;[t]he grand jury\u00a0received no evidence identifying the discrete portion of repair costs &#8212; if any \u2014 attributable to Mr. Hearn, much less a felony-level loss amount.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The DOJ also failed to show the grand jury a photo taken by Hearn before he touched the Reflecting Pool, which the government acknowledged was taken beforehand and his attorneys are arguing &#8220;proves that he caused no damage to the pool.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>These discrepancies raised &#8220;critical questions&#8221; about what instructions the DOJ gave the grand jury, Hearn&#8217;s attorneys argued, making reference to other recent cases under the &#8220;current Executive Branch leadership&#8221; (in other words, the Trump administration) where &#8220;fatal improprieties&#8221; with the government&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/lawcrime\/grand-juror-told-trump-doj-prosecutor-broadview-six-case-was-a-crock-of-sht-wild-transcript-reveals\/\">grand jury conduct<\/a> have been found, resulting in the &#8220;historic presumption of regularity&#8221; the federal courts had previously granted to the DOJ now being &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/print\/breaking-trump-doj-withdraws-subpoenas-sent-to-nyt-journalists\/\">thoroughly eroded<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/trump-politicizes-doj-creating-an-erosion-in-faith-with-judges-and-grand-juries-ny-times-reports\/\">current Department leadership<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/crime\/trump-dojs-own-witness-said-reflecting-pool-had-substantial-preexisting-damage-before-alleged-vandal-touched-it\/\">Trump DOJ\u2019s Own Witness Said Reflecting Pool Had \u2018Substantial Preexisting Damage\u2019 Before Alleged Vandal Touched It<\/a> first appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\">Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein Lawyers for David Hearn, the former Olympian who was arrested and accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool, filed a motion Monday citing key testimony they say supports dismissing their client&#8217;s case &#8212; from a witness for the prosecution. President Donald Trump has been infuriated by the troubles plaguing\u00a0the work he has directed&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/am14.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/06\/pool-2-1200x800.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}