The President Wants to Reopen a Vandalism Case the Justice Department Already Dropped. Here's Why It Matters.
The White House has asked the Justice Department to consider filing new charges against former Olympian David Hearn, trying to bring back a vandalism case that a federal judge threw out earlier this month. The request went to the department's headquarters in Washington, D.C., and was first reported by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
The case involves David Hearn, a 67-year-old from Bethesda, Maryland, and a former Olympic athlete. He was charged on June 19, 2026, with allegedly peeling off sealant from the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, a repair project that Donald Trump had personally backed. The charge was malicious destruction of property, which can carry up to 10 years in prison (Courthouse News). Hearn says he was on a bike ride in June and reached into the water to touch a piece of lining that was already coming off. He says he caused no damage.
On July 31, the top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro, moved to drop the charges. In a 20-page court filing, her office said evidence showed the damage happened before Hearn's visit and that it would be hard to prove the vandalism was his fault beyond a reasonable doubt. That phrase — "beyond a reasonable doubt" — is the high bar of proof required to convict someone of a crime in the United States. Pirro blamed a contractor for doing a poor installation job. Prosecutors admitted the administration's claim that Hearn vandalized the pool was false (NYT). A judge agreed to dismiss the case (Courthouse News). Charges against three other people in the same case — Carreno, Thiers, and Dennison-Gibby — were also dropped that day (KATV).
Trump publicly criticized Pirro for dropping the case, saying she "choked" (The Guardian). When asked whether the White House had requested new charges, it did not answer directly. Instead, it pointed a reporter to the Justice Department and sent links to two of Trump's social media posts demanding that Pirro reconsider her decision.
A Justice Department spokesperson was asked whether the department was considering new charges. In an email, the spokesperson said: "The Department of Justice follows the evidence when determining if crimes have been committed," and that it always evaluates cases based on the facts and the law (The Guardian).
Attorney General Todd Blanche, who leads the Justice Department, praised Pirro but would not say whether he agreed with her decision. "I don't approve or disapprove decisions that our US attorneys make in a general matter," Blanche said (Politico).
Hearn's lawyers — Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann, and Steve Levin — said in a statement that if the White House request is accurate, it would be a shocking first and add "another bizarre turn" to a sad chapter in the DOJ's history, further harassing an innocent man (The Guardian).
The broader context here is that the White House is directly intervening in a criminal case that prosecutors and a judge have already closed. The Justice Department's own dismissal papers admitted there wasn't enough evidence, and prosecutors said the administration's vandalism story was false. Asking the department to reopen a case it gave up for lack of proof raises an obvious question: what new evidence could support charges the department already decided it could not prove?
Pirro's filing blamed pre-existing damage and contractor error, not any one person's misconduct. If the department filed new charges without meaningful new evidence, career prosecutors would be in the awkward position of pushing a case their own office already discredited. Blanche's careful neutrality — praising Pirro while not defending her decision — gives no clear sign of which way the department might go.
For Hearn, the dismissed case may not be the end of the story. His lawyers have said he could seek sanctions, which are court-ordered penalties against the government for how it handled the case, and financial damages. If the Justice Department refiles charges, that civil lawsuit and the new criminal case would collide, making both more complicated. The White House's decision to send reporters to the Justice Department for comment while also circulating Trump's social media posts demanding reconsideration sends a clear signal about the president's wishes, even as it keeps up an appearance of distance.
This request also lands at a time when people are already watching how much political pressure the Justice Department will accept. Think of the Justice Department like a referee in a game: it's part of the government, but it's supposed to call fouls based on the rules, not on what the team owner wants. Blanche's comment that he doesn't approve or disapprove prosecutors' decisions "in a general matter" leaves it unclear whether he would treat a White House request about one specific case as just "general." The department spokesperson's standard response — that the DOJ follows evidence and law — neither confirms nor rules out the request.
What's left is a case that went from charges to dismissal in under six weeks, now pulled back into dispute by a president who didn't like the outcome. Whether the Justice Department acts on the White House request, and on what evidence, will determine whether this fades away or becomes a test of how far presidential pressure can reach into a case that was already closed.
