WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump is offering a sharply different explanation for damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool than the one his own Justice Department relied on when it dropped criminal charges against former Olympian David Hearn.
Trump claimed Sunday that a “highly credible” National Park Service employee witnessed Hearn “violently” pulling at the pool’s coating. He also alleged other vandalism occurred, while acknowledging for the first time that contractors made mistakes during the rushed renovation.
That account conflicts with the government’s explanation for abandoning Hearn’s prosecution. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office said the Interior Department initially represented the damage as vandalism but later produced documents showing that peeling and delamination resulted from a “botched installation” and contractor error. Prosecutors consequently moved to dismiss Hearn’s felony case and three related misdemeanor cases.
Trump now characterizes the contractor problems as limited and “relatively inconsequential,” despite prosecutors previously citing those problems as the reason they could no longer support the vandalism case.
He also acknowledged that there is “no video or proof” of some alleged damage beyond the damage itself, even as he continues publicly accusing Hearn after the case was formally dismissed.
The contradiction leaves Trump asserting criminal wrongdoing that his own prosecutors concluded they could not substantiate with the evidence provided by the Interior Department.
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