President Trump Critiques Decision to Drop Charges Against David Hearn
President Donald Trump criticized U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, for her choice to dismiss charges against former Olympian David Hearn. Hearn had faced accusations of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, an action that followed restoration efforts by the Trump administration.
“The judge was extremely unfriendly to Jeanine and, frankly, I think she choked,” Trump remarked to reporters in the Oval Office. He described the judge as “really vicious,” suggesting that rather than addressing the actual perpetrators, the attention turned to Pirro and her department, which he believes led to her failure in the case.
“I was disappointed in Jeanine Pirro. Really disappointed in her,” he added. “She folded like an umbrella.”
Last Friday, Pirro’s office filed a motion to dismiss, claiming that the Department of the Interior (DOI) had not provided sufficient details when the case began.
Despite this, Trump insisted, “Pirro made a mistake. There was vandalism. People get away with things, and it’s a disgrace.” He expressed his disagreement with her decision on social media, stating, “I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM.”
Reports indicated that Pirro visited the White House on Monday.
Hearn had been indicted last month by a grand jury for felony destruction of property, which could potentially lead to a decade in prison if he was convicted. At the time of the indictment, Pirro claimed that Hearn had “ripped a piece of recently installed sealant on the bottom of the Reflecting Pool.”
However, she later attributed the damage to the contractors responsible for resealing the pool, citing issues like “over spraying and delamination” that caused it to start peeling shortly after the project finished.
While Trump acknowledged the rushed installation to meet the July 4th deadline, he, along with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, reaffirmed that vandalism was the primary factor behind the pool’s damage.
