U.S. Attorney Dismisses Vandalism Charges Against Olympian David Hearn for Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Damage

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro on Friday moved to dismiss an indictment charging U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn with vandalizing the Reflecting Pool of the Lincoln Memorial, writing in a court filing that damage to the pool's sealant was the result of a "flawed installation."

Pirro, in a court filing in D.C. Superior Court, said her office received information and evidence after the charges were filed that "significantly undermine the evidentiary basis for the indictment."

Hearn had been charged with felony destruction of property in early July, with Pirro saying at a press conference that he "violently" ripped up part of the pool's liner with his bare hands.

Hearn's attorneys accused the Trump administration of making the 67-year-old ex-Olympian a "scapegoat" for the expensive and troubled renovation, which President Donald Trump had frequently boasted about.

After the pool appeared to continue leaking following its renovation, Trump repeatedly claimed, without providing evidence, that vandals had cut a gash hundreds of feet long along the bottom.

But Pirro said in Friday's court filing that a "botched installation" was to blame.

Prosecutors had presented a grand jury in D.C. with "evidence that damage to the Reflecting Pool was caused by vandals" after receiving initial reports to that effect from the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Park Police, Pirro wrote.

But after that grand jury returned its indictment against Hearn, the Interior Department provided "additional documents" showing that the damage occurring in June was the "result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings," Pirro said.

She also blamed "the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026."

Asked for additional comment, the U.S. Attorney's Office for D.C. told CNBC, "The motion speaks for itself."

Hearn's attorneys told CNBC in a statement, "The Trump administration's case against Davey Hearn should have never been brought."

"Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong," read the statement from lawyers Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann and Steve Levin.

"The government's approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology," they said.

The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

Four days earlier, Hearn's attorneys wrote in a court filing that the government's key grand-jury witness in the case "testified that the property was already damaged before Mr. Hearn allegedly touched it."

In that same filing, the defense lawyers asked for the disclosure of the information that the government provided to the grand jury before it made the decision to charge Hearn.

Pirro's decision to pack up her case may foreclose the possibility of that information being revealed.

Her filing repeatedly and pointedly lays blame on the Interior Department for providing her office with shoddy information.

"DOI provided less than fulsome information at the outset of this case," Pirro wrote at one point. "It was not until USAO-DC repeatedly reached out to DOI dozens and dozens of times that DOI slowly started trickling information to USAO-DC."

"Had DOI been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment," she wrote. "DOI's failure to fully and accurately provide information to USAODC undermined the government's ability to abide by these responsibilities."

The Interior Department did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

Pirro's motion to dismiss also provides new detail about issues that plagued the Reflecting Pool renovation and caused delays "almost immediately."

She pointed to "a combination of very rainy and windy weather, repeated failures of testing on the sealing of the expansion joints, and delays in obtaining sealing product at the worksite."

"The rush to complete the project led to hasty and botched work that was not remediated before the project was finished and the fencing removed," Pirro wrote.

The Trump administration had awarded the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings LLC, a no-bid contract to work on the Reflecting Pool.

Trump, in one of numerous instances detailing the renovation project to the press, said in April that he chose a contractor that had worked on one of his swimming pools.

CNBC has requested comment from the contractor. A website associated with the company currently features a pop-up window with two Reflecting Pool-related updates, with the most recent one dated June 21.

"Atlantic Industrial Coatings in conjunction with the US Park Service has identified some areas in the Reflecting Pool that require repairs," the update reads. "These areas are a very small part of the massive 7 acre project, and do not indicate a failure of the liner."