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norm eisen
'Free Davey!': Olympian Pleads Not Guilty to Charges That He Vandalized Reflecting Pool
A lawyer for former Olympian Davey Hearn said the indictment "reflects the administration's effort to scapegoat Davey and to shift blame for their own failures."
Jul 09, 2026
As supporters gathered outside the courthouse in support, former Olympic canoe racer David "Davey" Hearn pleaded not guilty on Thursday after being charged by the Trump administration with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Last week, Jeanine Pirro, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, secured a criminal indictment for property destruction against the 67-year-old Hearn for allegedly “forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner” of the pool in June.
Hearn, who could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, has said he was not vandalizing the pool and was simply pulling up a piece of the lining that had already begun to peel off.
"Today, Davey Hearn pled not guilty—because he is not guilty," said his attorney, Norm Eisen. "If Mr. Hearn can be charged with a felony for touching the Reflecting Pool, every American is at risk, and every American should be alarmed about this prosecution."
As he attempted to renovate the Reflecting Pool in the lead-up to the nation's 250th anniversary on July 4, President Donald Trump alleged that the scourge of algae blooms and peeling lining that have plagued the pool were caused by vandals, though he has provided little evidence.
The White House has claimed that at least seven people have been arrested for vandalism, though it provided no public information about other cases.
The company that installed the blue coating had previously worked at a Trump golf club, and the company that installed the water-cleaning system was owned by an investment firm led by a reported top Trump donor. Both received no-bid contracts awarded by the Department of the Interior.
Eisen said that the attempt to prosecute Hearn "reflects the administration's effort to scapegoat Davey and to shift blame for their own failures."
Hearn previously told The Associated Press that he was detained by National Guard troops and US Park Police for five hours after he reached into the pool to examine the newly peeled lining and briefly touched a piece of it. The canoeist said he let go of the lining as soon as he was told to do so by a park employee.
"It is not a crime to touch the Reflecting Pool," Eisen said.
Ryan Goodman, the co-editor-in-chief of Just Security, has said Hearn's indictment fits a "pattern of abuse of power" by Pirro, who was plucked from her previous job as a pro-Trump Fox News host to become DC's top prosecutor last year.
Goodman noted that, in a similar fashion to Pirro's use of the law against Trump's enemies, like the investigation into former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and the attempt to prosecute members of Congress who encouraged the military not to obey unlawful orders, the indictment against Hearn came immediately after Trump posted on Truth Social that he should spend "years in jail."
"Here we have it again," he said. "It's in lock-step with the president on this particular instance in which it seemed like authorities thought this was just a misdemeanor in the first instance. It smells really bad."
As Hearn was arraigned Thursday morning, dozens of supporters, including former Olympians, gathered outside the DC Superior Court at a "Free Davey!" rally to show solidarity.
Adam Van Grack, who chaired the Olympic national governing body for canoe and kayak sports and was coached by Hearn, described his former mentor as "someone who has spent decades giving back to athletes, to our community, and to our nation."
Van Grack noted Hearn's decades of volunteer work to maintain property owned by the US National Park Service that canoeists used for training.
“This is a person who has devoted his life to representing the United States on an international stage, caring for the community and protecting and caring for National Park Service property,” Van Grack said. “So the idea that he is a malicious destroyer of federal property shocks the conscience and makes no sense to anybody who’s ever known Davey Hearn.”
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Venezuelan Sent to CECOT by Trump Seeks $1.3 Million in US Legal Fight
"What happened to Adrián Rengel is government-sanctioned torture and a failure to recognize his humanity because he happened to be an immigrant."
Mar 24, 2026
One of the more than 200 Venezuelan men whom US President Donald Trump sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador last year, Neiyerver Adrián León Rengel, sued the United States of America in a federal court on Tuesday, seeking $1.3 million in damages.
León Rengel entered the United States at a port of entry in June 2023, during the Biden administration, for a pre-scheduled appointment, at which "he underwent screenings and provided his biometrics," according to the complaint, filed in Washington, DC. He was released and scheduled to appear before an immigration judge in April 2028.
However, the filing details, after Trump returned to office, León Rengel "was wrongly identified as a member of the gang Tren de Aragua (TDA), repeatedly denied due process, falsely imprisoned, intentionally deceived, and—ultimately—illegally sent to El Salvador in blatant violation of a court order."
León Rengel was sent to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), where Human Rights Watch found deportees were subjected to "systematic torture."
He told CBS News in Spanish that "there came a point when I thought about hanging myself with the sheet they gave us... It was hell. Total hell."
As CBS—which eventually aired an investigation into the prison despite interference from editor-in-chief Bari Weiss—reported Tuesday:
León Rengel was arrested once in the US after a traffic stop and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for possession of drug paraphernalia in Texas, documents show. León Rengel said the car where the material was found was not his. He said he paid a small fine.
Beyond that misdemeanor, León Rengel's lawyers said he has no criminal history, and that he was deported despite having an active immigration case and lacking a deportation order. Justice Department records reviewed by CBS News do not list a deportation order for León Rengel and show he had an immigration court hearing scheduled for April 2028.
León Rengel said he was identified as a Tren de Aragua gang member because of a tattoo on his left hand of a lion with a hair clipper on its mouth. He said he has cut hair in the US and Venezuela, and denies having any gang ties. Other former CECOT prisoners have similarly said they were accused of gang membership because of their tattoos.
DHS told the network that "this illegal alien was deemed a public safety threat as a confirmed associate of the Tren de Aragua gang and processed for removal from the US." The department declined to provide any evidence to support its claim that he is a TDA member, saying that doing so would "undermine" national security.
León Rengel was ultimately freed from CECOT and returned to Venezuela as part of a prisoner swap last summer. He is the first of the deportees to file such a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
"This case reveals an illegal and morally bereft plan of action at the highest levels of our government to defy a federal court, strip a man of his rights, and hand him over to a foreign government for torture to prove a political point," said retired Amb. Norm Eisen, co-founder and executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, in a statement.
"Adrián Rengel spent four months in abhorrent, inhumane conditions because senior officials chose to flout the rule of law," he continued. "We are filing suit today to get justice for him. The rule of law applies no matter what the political aims of the administration."
In addition to Eisen's group, León Rengel is represented by the law firm Mariziani, Stevens & Gonzalez, with support from the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).
"What happened to Adrián Rengel is government-sanctioned torture and a failure to recognize his humanity because he happened to be an immigrant. He deserves his day in court," said LULAC CEO Juan Proaño. "His four months of illegal confinement is the devastating outcome of a system designed to treat Latino immigrants as criminals simply because of where they were born or the color of their skin."
"Rengel and others were stripped of due process, lied to about where they were being sent, and handed over to a foreign dictatorship to be tortured in America's name," Proaño added. "The United States government had the power to stop this, and they chose not to. The court should deliver the justice the executive branch intentionally denied him."
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‘He Will Try Anything’: Democratic AGs Preparing for Trump to Send Military to Polls, Seize Ballots
Trump may try to push "oddball, ludicrous, unconstitutional theories" to keep the GOP in power, one Democratic attorney general said.
Feb 23, 2026
Democratic state attorneys general across the US are preparing for President Donald Trump to take unprecedented actions to interfere with the 2026 midterm elections.
As reported by Politico on Monday, the Democratic AGs have been conducting war games aimed at countering "a series of increasingly extreme scenarios" where Trump tries to block Democrats from retaking the US House of Representatives later this year.
Among the many possibilities that the AGs are preparing for are that the Trump administration orders the seizure of ballots and voting machines, defunds the post office to block the delivery of mail-in ballots, and sends federal immigration enforcement officials or even the US military to patrol polling places.
The AGs have also been carefully monitoring Trump officials' rhetoric for hints of future election subversion plots, such as when US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said recently that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would "make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders."
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown told Politico that such statements are a "red-alarm fire that people need to take very seriously," and emphasized that Democrats need to be ready for the president to commit outright crimes to keep the GOP in power.
"He will try anything,” warned Brown. "We have to just sort of think creatively about: If you were the president and you were trying to invalidate an election or undermine an election, what are the oddball, ludicrous, unconstitutional theories that you might advance?"
In addition to Noem's comments about DHS getting involved in elections, Trump ally Steve Bannon has floated sending US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials to monitor polling places, while Trump in January said that "we shouldn’t even have an election" this year.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta told Politico that it was "sad and tragic" that his office had to take such preparations, but said it was necessary because the president "wants to continue to have his party prevail, seemingly by whatever means necessary."
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel pointed to the recent FBI seizure of materials related to the 2020 election from Fulton County, Georgia as a sign of what's to come during the midterm elections.
"We recognize that what happened in Fulton County could happen in Detroit," she said. "Not because there’s any merit to claims that anything wrong happened in Detroit, but because we know that those claims will be made again."
Politico also reported on Monday that Democracy Defenders Action has recruited Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) to deliver a "State of Our Democracy" speech on Tuesday ahead of Trump's State of the Union address where she will outline the threats the president and his administration pose to Americans' voting rights.
Norm Eisen, executive chairman of Democracy Defenders Action, told Politico that the speech was necessary because "the threats facing our democracy have never been greater."
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