Last week, a D.C. Superior Court judge made sure the Trump administration can never again prosecute David Hearn for touching a piece of the Reflecting Pool that was already falling off. Now Hearn’s lawyers want to know how the case happened in the first place.
On Tuesday, Hearn’s legal team sent a 21-page letter to the inspectors general at the Justice and Interior Departments. The team includes Michael Bromwich (himself a former DOJ inspector general), Steven Levin, and Jason Weinstein of Steptoe; Mary Dohrmann of the Washington Litigation Group; and Norm Eisen and Joshua Kolb of Democracy Defenders Fund. They’re asking for coordinated investigations into Hearn’s arrest, his indictment, and everything that came after.
A quick refresher for anyone who has blocked out the summer. Trump’s rushed, multimillion-dollar renovation of the pool started peeling almost immediately, and the administration blamed vandals. A 67-year-old, three-time Olympic canoeist out on a bike ride became the face of the “vandalism.” On July 2, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro got him indicted on a felony carrying up to 10 years. Then, on July 31, she moved to dismiss, conceding the damage came from a “flawed installation.” That earned her a presidential review of “folded like an umbrella” and weeks of speculation that Trump would fire her for having one foot in reality. On October 1, Judge Todd Edelman dismissed the case with prejudice, finding the government “shot first and asked questions later.”
But according to the letter, Pirro deserves a lot less credit for eventually seeing the light than she’d like:
On July 1, 2026—the day before it went to the grand jury—the USAO-DC received the National Park Service’s Damage Assessment… Even setting aside the mountain of public reporting on the failing liner before Mr. Hearn ever approached the pool, the prosecutors possessed written documentation that Mr. Hearn did not and could not have caused $1,000 of damage to the Reflecting Pool. Nevertheless, they sought and obtained an indictment the very next day.
So the government had the paperwork saying the guy couldn’t have done it, and went to the grand jury the next morning anyway. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
But don’t worry — it gets worse, fast. Per the letter, the government’s sole damages witness told the grand jury the pool had substantial preexisting damage and that he couldn’t quantify any loss tied to Hearn. He was excused, then recalled 21 minutes later, and this time declared the damage would “definitely be $1,000 or more.” Which… just happens to be the exact line between a misdemeanor and a felony.
The letter also says the government’s claim that it first learned about the liner’s pervasive failures on July 17 is “blatantly false.” Prosecutors had produced the June 30 damage assessment to the defense a week earlier. And then there’s what Pirro herself was doing at the pool on July 17:
A U.S. Attorney who personally interrogates a represented defendant’s testifying expert, in the field, surrounded by her own staff and without notice to counsel, is not gathering evidence—she is testing how the defense intends to prove its case, and doing so in a setting that essentially held the expert captive.
According to the letter, members of her own staff cautioned her not to ask the expert those questions, but she kept asking. That fits an office whose grand juries and trial juries keep handing it losses, and whose boss convened a special grand jury right as her job was on the line.
Pirro isn’t the only one in the letter’s crosshairs. Her own dismissal motion blamed Interior for giving her office “less than fulsome information,” and the letter takes that and runs with it. Interior’s own engineer flagged the liner as “vulnerable to peeling” on June 11, eight days before Hearn showed up, while Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was out claiming “people are using box cutters to do vandalism on this thing.” Asked for comment by the AP, Interior is still insisting Hearn “admitted to officers that he was tampering with the Reflecting Pool.” His lawyers’ response, “He touched the loose liner in the Reflecting Pool. Big Difference.”
The letter is clear-eyed about who will be reading it. It notes the administration has pushed out roughly 20 inspectors general over the past 20 months in favor of “politically aligned replacements.” DOJ’s IG, Don Berthiaume, was confirmed 51-47 after declining to call January 6 an attack on the Capitol. Hearn’s lawyers call their request “a further test of the IG system under this Administration,” which is generous of them, considering the administration has spent 20 months rigging that very test.
Earlier: Donald Trump Likely To Fire Jeanine Pirro For Having One Foot In Reality
Judge Demands Answers From DOJ For Refusing To Dismiss Reflecting Pool Case With Prejudice
How Much Misconduct Is Jeanine Pirro Willing To Do To Save Her Job?
Litigants Ask To Check Reflecting Pool For ‘Sabotage’
Jeanine Pirro Is The Biggest Loser
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
