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Interior Secretary Doug Burgum doubled down on claims that vandals were responsible for damage to Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, rejecting the Justice Department’s assessment that faulty construction was to blame.
The DOJ moved to dismiss its felony destruction-of-property charge against former Olympian David Hearn on Friday, after finding new evidence that the damage to the pool’s lining was caused by a “rushed and botched installation,” and not alleged vandalism.
“The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool,” Burgum wrote on the social platform X, insisting that bad actors were responsible for the botched multi-million dollar renovation. “Some of these acts were even caught on camera.”
He said the Interior Department provided the U.S. Attorney’s office with expert and eyewitness testimony documenting the damage, along with “every piece of evidence they asked for” detailing the areas of damage.
“Intentional damage done to the Reflecting Pool is no different than defacing any one of our other national monuments,” Burgum wrote. “We won’t back down to deranged people who want to destroy, deface, or degrade our monuments.”
In a new court filing, the department indicated that they could no longer prove its case against the three-time Olympic canoeist who pleaded not guilty to the felony charge earlier this month.
Prosecutors said evidence obtained after Hearn was indicted showed that damage to the pool’s liner was caused from a shoddy installation caused by a rushed renovation, including over-spraying and repeated failures during the sealing process.
President Trump slammed the move and called out U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
“I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM.”
The department concluded, however, that the portion of the pool that Hearn was accused of touching was not the same area where investigators believe deliberate vandalism likely occurred.
Prosecutors cited newly discovered evidence, including internal engineering records, which led to the conclusion that it would be difficult to attribute the widespread damage to vandalism.
The decision came after Hearn’s lawyers sought to release the full grand jury record that led to his indictment, arguing that “irregularities” occurred during the closed-door proceedings.
Hearn, 67, was indicted earlier this month after prosecutors accused him of “forcefully and violently” ripping roughly two square feet of the pool’s liner. He pleaded not guilty to the felony charge, insisting that he left the pool in the same condition in which he found it.
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