DOJ Drops Reflecting Pool Case, But Olympian's Lawyers Say That Won't 'Erase the Abuse' of Power

The US Department of Justice on Friday moved to throw out its criminal case against David Hearn, the Olympian it accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC, sparking demands for, at minimum, an apology from the DOJ.

"The Trump administration's case against Davey Hearn should have never been brought," said his attorneys, Norm Eisen of Democracy Defenders Fund, Mary Dohrmann of Washington Litigation Group, and Steve Levin of Steptoe LLP, in a joint statement.

"Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong," they continued. "The government's approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology."

President Donald Trump in April announced plans to renovate the Reflecting Pool for the country's 250th anniversary. Two months later, despite the administration spending millions of dollars on resurfacing, the water turned green from algae. That led to a hydrogen peroxide treatment and a $1.7 million no-bid contract for a company whose owner is a Trump donor, after which multiple ducks were found dead.

Hearn, one of several people accused of tampering with the pool, was arrested in June. Early last month, Jeanine Pirro, the Trump-appointed US attorney for the District of Columbia, revealed that her office had secured a felony indictment against him. The 67-year-old, who faced up to a decade in prison, pleaded not guilty and had a trial scheduled for September.

"I didn't vandalize anything," Hearn, an Olympic canoeist, said in an interview with The Washington Post, explaining that he had touched a piece of pool lining that was already peeling off. "I didn't destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs."

In its Friday motion to dismiss the case, Pirro's office said that after the return of the indictment, the US Department of the Interior (DOI) provided information indicating that the damage "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."

"It is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt," the document also states.

MS NOW legal analyst Lisa Rubin highlighted Pirro's previous promise to "prove beyond a reasonable doubt" that Hearn caused the damage.

NBC News noted that "a spokesperson for Pirro said the filing spoke for itself. Her office also moved to dismiss at least one of the other three misdemeanor cases that had been brought in connection with the Reflecting Pool."

It's not just Pirro's office and the DOJ under fire for this debacle. While welcoming the motion to dismiss, Tim Whitehouse, executive director of the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), took aim at DOI in a Saturday statement.

"This project has become a poster child for corruption and why competitive bidding and transparency in federal contracting matter," Whitehouse said. "Transparency in contracting prevents waste, self-dealing, and exactly the kind of expensive, embarrassing failure this project has become. Decisions about the best way to repair public infrastructure should rest with engineers and career experts following open, competitive bidding, not with political officials chasing a photo-op deadline ordered by the president while steering money to favored contractors."

"The use of false charges and criminal prosecutions to deflect blame away from politically powerful leaders and their allies is an abuse of the justice system that cannot be tolerated," he added. "The Interior Department officials responsible for this failure—the no-bid contract, the botched renovation, lying to the public and the rush to blame an innocent man—owe the public a full accounting. PEER calls on Congress to investigate and demands that those responsible face real consequences."

Meanwhile, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to make clear that he "100%" disagrees with Pirro, sparking speculation about whether he may fire her.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum then claimed that "the evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool," in a post on the platform X that New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel described as "repeating the boss."

Hearn's attorneys said that "Trump and Burgum are attacking Pirro because she admitted what we established in our legal filings all along: Trump's botched renovation was responsible for the damage—not Davey Hearn. However, Pirro's claim that she and her office were previously duped by Interior is nonsense."

"Starting immediately after arraignment, our motions repeatedly proved that the administration was to blame for the Reflecting Pool failures, not Davey," they added. "This is far from over, as we consider all legal remedies."

This article has been updated with new comments from President Donald Trump, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and Davey Hearn's attorneys.