A federal judge in Washington, D.C., indicated that President Donald Trump’s public pressure campaign could jeopardize the legal case against former U.S. Olympian David Hearn regarding the vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. During a hearing on Friday, Judge Todd Edelman pressed U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office to dismiss the indictment “with prejudice,” a move that would permanently bar prosecutors from re-charging Hearn.
The legal maneuver follows a late July motion by Pirro to dismiss the case “without prejudice.” In that filing, federal prosecutors acknowledged that damage to the Reflecting Pool stemmed from a “flawed installation” rather than criminal vandalism. The dismissal sparked immediate outrage from President Trump, who took to social media on August 7 to demand Pirro revisit what he called a “hastily made decision.”
Leave a Reply