{"id":23857,"date":"2026-08-01T03:24:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T22:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=23857"},"modified":"2026-08-01T03:24:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T22:24:55","slug":"jeanine-pirro-drops-lincoln-memorial-vandalism-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=23857","title":{"rendered":"Jeanine Pirro Drops Lincoln Memorial Vandalism Case"},"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=\"post-body\">\n<div id=\"attachment_5674087\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5674087\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5674087\" src=\"https:\/\/am12.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Pirro-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1706\" srcset=\"https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Pirro-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Pirro-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Pirro-1200x800.jpeg 1200w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Pirro-150x100.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Pirro-768x512.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Pirro-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Pirro-2048x1365.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5674087\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein, File<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Jeanine Pirro<\/strong>, the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, moved Friday to dismiss the criminal case against former Olympic canoeist <strong>David Hearn<\/strong>, acknowledging in a court filing that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was caused by \u201cflawed installation\u201d rather than vandalism.<\/p>\n<p>Hearn had pleaded <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/just-in-ex-olympian-pleads-not-guilty-to-vandalizing-dc-reflecting-pool\/\">not guilty<\/a> earlier this month to one felony count of destruction of government property after he was <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\/\">accused<\/a> of damaging the Reflecting Pool during a June 19 visit.<\/p>\n<p>In Friday\u2019s motion, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/07\/31\/us-news\/jeanine-pirro-seeks-to-drop-charges-against-olympian-david-hearn-admits-reflecting-pool-damage-was-flawed-installation\/\">reported<\/a> on by the <em>New York Post<\/em>, Pirro\u2019s office said new information provided after the indictment undermined the government\u2019s original theory of the case.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was not until after the return of the indictment, that the DOI provided additional documents to the USAO-DC indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings (\u2018AIC\u2019), and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026,\u201d the filing states.<\/p>\n<p>The motion further says, \u201cIt was not until after these documents were produced that USAO-DC first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by DOI.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the filing, the sealant lining the bottom of the Reflecting Pool had \u201c[a]lmost immediately\u201d begun peeling after renovations were completed, and the Department of the Interior \u201cprovided less than fulsome information at the outset of this case.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The dismissal comes days after Hearn\u2019s attorneys challenged the prosecution\u2019s case in a separate court filing, arguing that the government\u2019s own evidence failed to support the felony charge, and pointing to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/crime\/trump-dojs-own-witness-said-reflecting-pool-had-substantial-preexisting-damage-before-alleged-vandal-touched-it\/\">testimony<\/a> from a National Park Service official presented to the grand jury, arguing that the witness acknowledged the Reflecting Pool already suffered from significant preexisting damage and \u201ccould not quantify any loss attributable\u201d to Hearn\u2019s alleged actions.<\/p>\n<p><em>The New York Times<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/06\/18\/us\/politics\/trump-donor-contract-reflecting-pool.html?eafs_enabled=false\">reported<\/a> in June, as crews continued battling <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/reflecting-pool-is-now-under-siege-by-a-different-and-more-aggressive-form-of-algae-report\/\">algae blooms<\/a> that turned the pool bright green, that the National Park Service awarded a $1.7 million no-bid contract for a new water-purification system to Greenwater Services, a company tied to a longtime donor to President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong>, <strong>John J. Cafaro<\/strong>. A separate no-bid contract was awarded to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the contractor now identified in Friday\u2019s filing as responsible for the botched installation.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein, File Jeanine Pirro, the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, moved Friday to dismiss the criminal case against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, acknowledging in a court filing that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was caused by \u201cflawed installation\u201d rather than vandalism. Hearn had pleaded not guilty earlier&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Pirro-scaled.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23857","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\/23857","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=23857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}