Federal prosecutors on Friday moved to drop a criminal charge filed against a former Olympian who had been accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool, suggesting that the damage was instead due to a “botched” and rushed installation.
Prosecutors said they would dismiss an indictment against David Hearn, an Olympic canoeist, whose arrest last month drew national attention amid questions about why the pool’s new blue liner was peeling. President Donald Trump — who had ordered that officials install the new liner and make other changes to the pool — repeatedly blamed vandals after pieces of the refurbished liner started drifting to the surface.
A Washington Post analysis earlier this month found that the basin’s peeling was likely due to application errors by workers, a conclusion challenged by Trump administration officials at the time but supported by experts in waterproofing materials.
According to Friday’s filing in D.C. Superior Court, internal Interior Department documents also chalked up the peeling of the pool liner to contractor errors made during the hurried effort to overhaul the pool ahead of celebrations to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary in July. Justice Department lawyers said the information they received showed that “the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented” by the Interior Department.
“Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt,” according to the Justice Department’s filing.
The Justice Department also said that officials at the Interior Department initially did not provide sufficient information about contractor errors and turned it over only after “dozens and dozens” of requests from the office of the U.S. attorney for the nation’s capital.
“Had [the Interior Department] been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment,” the filing reads.
The Associated Press reported Saturday that Trump sharply criticized U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s assessment that damage to the pool was the result of shoddy construction and not the work of vandals.
Trump, in a posting on social media, acknowledged that there “may have been some contractor difficulty” in the installation of a new pool liner. But he continues to insist “the major damage was caused by VANDALS!”
“I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool,” Trump added in his post.
Trump on Saturday also posted a nearly four-minute video that appears to have been taken from a security camera, in which three individuals can be seen with their hands in the pool, including one for an extended period.
The president claimed the video shows “material is being cut with a knife or a box cutter, for all to see!”
It’s not clear from the video, which appears to be shot from some distance, that any vandalism occurred. Workers can also be seen standing nearby and don’t appear to notice the people sticking their hands in the water.
The Interior Department did not immediately respond Friday night to questions about the administration’s past accusations against Hearn and others arrested for allegedly damaging the pool, or questions about the Justice Department’s decision to drop the case.
The contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement on its website dated June 21, the company defended its work, saying that while the U.S. Park Service had identified areas of the pool that required repairs, the areas “are a very small part of the massive 7 acre project, and do not indicate a failure of the liner.”
Hearn and three others charged with misdemeanors related to Reflecting Pool damage had a status hearing set for next Thursday. Court records show that at least one of those misdemeanor cases, against Justin Carreno, was dismissed Friday.
“While we are pleased with this result,” Carreno’s attorneys, David Benowitz and Rammy Barbari, said in a statement, “Mr. Carreno is innocent of the charge and should never have been prosecuted in the first place.”
Hearn’s lawyers and outside watchdog groups said Friday’s move to drop charges was insufficient, and accused the administration of seeking to punish innocent Americans rather than admit its own errors.
“The Trump administration’s case against Davey Hearn should have never been brought,” Hearn’s lawyers, Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann and Steve Levin, said in a statement. “Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong. The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology.”
Hearn told the Post last month that he was cycling past the pool and put his hand in the water only to touch a piece of liner that was already dislodged. Reached by phone on Friday night, he declined to comment.
The fight over the century-old Reflecting Pool — which sits at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial and has played host to famous speeches and events — has unexpectedly emerged as a major flash point in Trump’s second term.
Trump announced plans in April to abruptly overhaul the pool, saying that he had personally picked out a new color for the basin, “American Flag Blue,” and had recommended contractors based on his experience managing pools at his various resorts.
At the time, Trump said the pool renovations would cost less than $2 million and be completed within two weeks. The cost later swelled to more than $14 million, and historic preservationists and other experts repeatedly warned that the rapid renovations could backfire.
The job was completed within six weeks, with the president and his allies saying it was a symbol of his efforts to remake Washington.
“I’m very proud of it,” Trump said in the Oval Office as the pool prepared to reopen. “I’m very good at building things and constructing things.”
The celebrations were short-lived. Within days, the pool was beset by major algae outbreaks and the liner’s peeling. The president responded by alleging that vandals were to blame, accusing them of cutting parts of the pool but providing no evidence.
“Many additional people have been arrested having to do with the disgraceful Vandalism of our beautiful Reflecting Pool,” the president wrote on Truth Social in June.
“It was slashed with a knife, or box cutter, high grade colored waterproofing liner — it was VANDALISM!,” Trump wrote in another post this month, criticizing an ABC News report that suggested the liner was peeling.
A recent visual inspection found damage in the middle of the pool — “where a vandal would not likely attempt to peel the lining” — further indicating that the damage stemmed from mistakes during installation, DOJ lawyers wrote in their filing.
The administration drained the pool after the July Fourth celebrations on the Mall, with officials saying further renovations would be necessary. In a Justice Department filing Thursday, the administration said the pool would be closed through Aug. 10.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation, an education and advocacy organization, is suing to block the administration’s continued work on the pool, saying Trump has disregarded long-established processes and federal requirements intended to protect historic sites.
“Today, the iconic pool sits empty, covered in peeling epoxy after a botched job,” the organization’s lawyers wrote in a court filing Friday, asking a federal judge to halt further changes to the pool until they can go through a formal review process.
