Attorneys for Olympic canoeist David Hearn are asking a D.C. judge to permanently bar prosecutors from refiling charges in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool vandalism case, arguing the government's own evidence cleared him and political pressure now threatens to override that conclusion.
Hearn's legal team filed a motion Thursday in District of Columbia Superior Court calling on Judge Todd Edelman to dismiss the case with prejudice, a move that would prevent the Department of Justice from ever bringing the same charges again. The motion, reported by The Hill, accuses the executive branch of waging a "public political pressure campaign" to resurrect a prosecution that collapsed under the weight of its own evidence.
The DOJ dropped charges against Hearn on July 31 after U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro concluded that contractors who worked on multimillion-dollar renovations to the pool, not vandals, caused the damage. But within days, senior administration officials began publicly contradicting that finding, and reports surfaced that the Justice Department was weighing new charges against the 67-year-old former Olympian.
The Reflecting Pool case began as a high-profile prosecution tied to President Trump's signature refurbishment of the Lincoln Memorial pool. The project coated the pool with a specialty "American Flag Blue" sealant and was intended to be finished in time for America 250 celebrations on July 4. A Virginia-based contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, received a $14.7 million no-bid contract for the work, according to AP News.
Hearn was indicted on a single count of felony property destruction. Pirro's office claimed he caused $1,000 in damage to the newly installed sealant in what prosecutors initially called a "deliberate act." Hearn pleaded not guilty.
The case fell apart after Interior Department documents, provided only after Hearn's indictment, showed the pool liner had already begun peeling due to overspraying and coating failures by the contractor. The DOI had initially told prosecutors that "nearly all of the damage" was due to vandalism, the New York Post reported, only revealing the botched installation after the indictment was already in hand.
Pirro's own court filing acknowledged the problem directly: "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."
A D.C. judge dismissed the felony charge against Hearn, but the question of whether that dismissal would be with or without prejudice remained unresolved, which is exactly what Hearn's attorneys are now fighting to settle permanently.
The ink on Pirro's dismissal motion was barely dry before senior officials pushed back. On August 1, one day after the DOJ dropped charges, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum posted on X: "The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool." That claim ran directly counter to the Interior Department's own documents, which pointed to a rushed and defective contractor installation as the likely cause.
Burgum's assertion was particularly notable because his own department had provided the evidence that undermined the vandalism theory. He had previously acknowledged that algae filling the pool were "in the pipes," a concession that the Washington Examiner noted cut against the premise behind the criminal charges.
Six days later, on August 7, President Trump posted on Truth Social calling for Pirro to "re-visit her hastily made decision" to drop Hearn's charges. Trump had publicly rebuked Pirro over the dropped charges, and the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Trump asked the DOJ to bring new charges against accused Reflecting Pool vandals.
Trump has maintained that the pool was vandalized regardless of what the evidence showed. "They did a beautiful job," he said of the contractors. "There were a couple of little things, but that was not a big deal. And everybody saw the vandalism."
The motion filed Thursday lays out a straightforward argument: the executive branch is applying political pressure to restart a prosecution that its own evidence does not support, and the court should step in to stop it.
Hearn's attorneys wrote in the filing:
"Executive Branch officials have continued to advance the narrative, contrary to the evidence and the filings of record in this case, that Mr. Hearn vandalized the Reflecting Pool."
They pointed to both Burgum's post and Trump's Truth Social statement as evidence that the threat of renewed prosecution was real, not hypothetical. The motion continued:
"Those public statements, together with reports that the Department of Justice is considering bringing new charges against Mr. Hearn, confirm that the risk of continued prosecutorial harassment is not speculative."
The defense team's sharpest line targeted the DOJ's independence. "The public political pressure campaign being conducted through the Executive Branch in this case shows that the government cannot be trusted to properly exercise its prosecutorial discretion," the motion stated.
Hearn's defense attorneys, Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann, and Steve Levin, have characterized the original prosecution as a miscarriage of justice from the start. They argued that the DOJ "disregarded readily available evidence" showing the pool liner was already failing before Hearn ever touched it, and that the contractor had publicly acknowledged portions of the project required repair before Hearn was even indicted.
National Review's Jeffrey Blehar described Hearn as someone who was "chosen at random and put through the wringer for no reason, until cleared", a characterization that captures the defense's core complaint about how the case was handled.
The Reflecting Pool saga has now drawn congressional attention. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, launched probes this week into both Pirro and Burgum over the initial decision to bring felony vandalism charges against Hearn. The scope and current status of those probes remain unclear.
Meanwhile, the DOJ is pressing forward with charges against another suspect accused of spray-painting the World War II Memorial in Washington with neon-orange graffiti. Trump linked the two cases in a post, writing: "First the Reflecting Pool, now this. We are on their trail! Where do these animals come from?" Pirro's office has filed two felony charges in that separate case.
That case involves a Kentucky woman now in custody, a prosecution built on far more straightforward evidence than the Reflecting Pool charges ever were.
The contrast between the two cases is hard to miss. In one, prosecutors have clear evidence of deliberate vandalism. In the other, the government's own Interior Department produced documents showing a contractor's shoddy work caused the damage, the U.S. Attorney concluded the evidence could not support a conviction, and the case was dismissed, yet political pressure from the top continues to push for prosecution.
Judge Edelman has not yet indicated whether he will schedule a hearing on Hearn's motion. Trump has continued pressing Pirro to reopen the vandalism cases, citing new damage claims.
When prosecutors drop charges because their own evidence falls apart, the system is supposed to move on. When the White House keeps pushing to re-prosecute anyway, the system has a different problem entirely.
