It might be tempting to think Donald Trump’s Reflecting Pool debacle has effectively run its course. With federal prosecutors having dropped all the pending criminal charges against accused “vandals,” what remains is a humiliating scandal that reflects, as The New York Times summarized, the Republican administration’s “willingness to skirt laws, expend millions of dollars, ignore facts and punish truth tellers in service of the president’s demands to put his mark on the capital.”
But on three fronts, the metastasizing fiasco is far from over.
First, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has dropped her felony case against former Olympian David Hearn, conceding the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was caused by “botched work” performed by the project’s contractor, not by criminal conduct; House Democrats are moving forward with an investigation into what transpired and are pushing the administration to release records related to the prosecution.
As The Washington Post reported, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter this week to Pirro and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, “seeking all documents related to the decision to prosecute Hearn and any communications between the agencies and the White House about the case.”
In a press statement, the Maryland Democrat said:
Did DOJ prosecutors knowingly bring a bogus indictment? Did DOI withhold key evidence to blame the disastrous reflecting pool renovation on an innocent man? Did President Trump pressure or influence either Department to engage in wrongful actions against an American citizen? At a minimum, it appears that members of the Trump Administration were ready and willing to imprison an innocent American for a decade in a desperate effort to soothe an ex-landlord’s wounded ego about a terrible paint job and wasteful contract.
Second, Pirro, the former Fox News host who’s currently the top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., has already conceded in court filings that Hearn is innocent, but The Wall Street Journal reported that White House officials have nevertheless asked the Justice Department “to consider a new prosecution” of the Olympian anyway.
If accurate, this points to a breathtaking set of circumstances. Team Trump, annoyed by an embarrassing failure on an unnecessary vanity project, wants federal law enforcement to go after an innocent man — again — even after the president personally conceded in writing that “there is no video or proof” to bolster his baseless claims.
And third, there’s still some question about whether the president will fire Pirro for having sided with reality over his wishes. Trump has publicly trashed the U.S. attorney for nearly two weeks. And in recent days, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro appeared on Steve Bannon’s program, where the discussion turned to Pirro. Navarro said, “Never mention her friggin’ name to me. … Jeanine, are you listening?”
The disaster, in other words, remains ongoing. Watch this space.
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