Trump news turned on Friday when Jeanine Pirro and Michael Spence asked a judge to dissolve the Justice Department’s case against David Hearn, the 67-year-old former Olympian accused in the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool case. Prosecutors said the damage came from a flawed installation, not sabotage.
David Hearn and the case
The petition puts Hearn’s vandalism charges on course for dismissal if the judge grants the request. He had been accused of pool sabotage in a case tied to the reflecting pool work, which prosecutors now say was undermined by the way the liner materials were installed.
The pool holds about 4m gallons of water, and the project had already moved far beyond its first plan. What started as a one-to-two-week timeline to drain and reseal the basin grew into work that cost between $14 million and $16 million.
Department of Interior information
Prosecutors said the peeling liner followed the botched installation of the materials used on the basin. They also pointed to less than fulsome information from the Department of Interior, which added to their decision to abandon the sabotage theory.
The renovation itself began as a no-bid project to seal seams and coat the basin bottom in American flag blue, with estimated costs of $1.5 million to $2 million. The reflecting pool had also been renovated in 2012 at a cost of $34 million, when work focused on improving the floor support system to keep it from sinking.
Trump and the Reflecting Pool
Donald Trump pushed back on Saturday, writing that he disagreed 100% with Jeanine Pirro on the Reflecting Pool and calling it “a pure case of VANDALISM.” He had already visited the site on 7 May and said, “It never had the color people wanted, but now it’s going to have the great color.”
That same project later drew in Greenwater Services of Brookfield, Ohio, after bypassing the National Park Service, and contracting records show the firm’s ultimate owner is the JJ Cafaro Investment Trust. Atlantic Industrial Coatings and Mid-America Industrial Coatings used Pipeliner 5000 in dark blue and a light blue Rhino 406 primer on the project.
The judge now has to decide whether the Justice Department’s case against Hearn dissolves. If the request is granted, the legal focus shifts from alleged vandalism to how the reflecting pool work was handled from the start, including the liner failure that prosecutors blamed for the damage.
