U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro moved to dismiss a felony vandalism indictment against the former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn. Her office stated the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool damage was due to a botched contractor installation, not vandalism.

This is after so much fanfare and headline-grabbing statements in press conferences by Pirro assuring that there was ample evidence showing Hearn had forcefully peeled off the pool lining and caused more than $1000 of damage to the pool. And the president himself had accused, multiple times, sick activist vandals of using a knife or a box cutter to create a more than 350 feet long gash in the lining.

The dismissal came after the defense team demonstrated serious concerns about the validity of the grand jury indictment and whether the prosecution had followed the process according to the law, and after the judge had ordered the full transcripts of the grand jury proceedings. It is not the first time that the DoJ has dismissed a case when the grand jury process was scrutinized by a judge (another recent example happened in Chicago).

I don’t know which is worse: baselessly indicting a 67 year old former Olympian, with felony charges that could potentially carry years in prison, only to later say that, oops, it was the contractor not the defendant, or the president spewing lies without any evidence, even without the backing of his own Parks Services Department, just to deflect and distract the public’s attention from the botched job of a no-bid contractor friend, who has already received over $14M for it. So much for fighting with waste, fraud, and abuse!

Update 8/1/2026: Looks like this is not over yet, and instead is turning into an infighting:

Jeanine Pirro: Based upon the initial reports provided by the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Park Police, the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia presented the grand jury with evidence that damage to the Reflecting Pool was caused by vandals, including the defendant in this case, David Hearn. However, it was not until after the return of the indictment, that the Department of the Interior 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 (“AIC”), and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.