He ordered a rushed $14 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. When it failed, his administration blamed vandals and had a former Olympic athlete, David Hearn, indicted for felony destruction of property, along with several others. His own Interior Department was holding an engineer’s finding that the damage came from a botched contractor installation, and did not turn it over. Once it surfaced, his Justice Department dropped the case, stating in a court filing that the damage was “the result of a botched installation and not vandalism” and that it would never have sought the indictment had the evidence been disclosed. He then rejected his own department’s conclusion, insisting on Truth Social it was “a pure case of VANDALISM” and faulting his own appointed U.S. Attorney, Jeanine Pirro.
SourcesThe dropped case, and his attack on his own prosecutor (Axios) · His own DOJ’s filing: a botched installation, not vandalism (NBC News)
Named hereJeanine Pirro
