Pirro drops more Reflecting Pool cases after vandalism claims collapse

Jeanine Pirro’s office dropped charges Friday against three more people accused of vandalism at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, after federal prosecutors said the damage came from a “botched installation” or “flawed installation” tied to a $14 million renovation.

The retreat followed the earlier dismissal of the case against former three-time U.S. Olympian David Hearn. He was indicted in early July 2026 after a June 19 incident in which he allegedly ripped at recently installed sealant at the pool. Prosecutors had said Hearn faced up to 10 years in prison on a felony destruction-of-property charge, and his trial had been set for Sept. 28 before the government moved to dismiss the case.

The filings marked a sharp reversal from the government’s original vandalism theory. In Hearn’s case, the Justice Department said it was difficult to attribute the Reflecting Pool’s widespread damage to vandalism and instead pointed to the Interior Department and contractor work. Across the newer dismissals, prosecutors have now acknowledged that the pool’s problems were not caused by vandals at all but by installation failures connected to the renovation.

The sequence has put Pirro’s charging decisions under scrutiny. Her office initially pursued felony vandalism cases in one of Washington’s most visible public-order settings, then backed away after conceding that the damage stemmed from construction problems rather than intentional destruction. That shift leaves open the question of whether the cases were brought too aggressively before the facts of the renovation work were sorted out.

The political fallout widened as Donald Trump publicly rebuked Pirro for dropping the case. On Saturday and again Monday, he said she had “choked,” “folded like an umbrella,” and “made a mistake,” and said he disagreed “100%” with her conclusion that shoddy construction caused the damage. His criticism underscored the clash between Pirro’s revised explanation and Trump’s repeated claims that vandals were responsible.