President Donald Trump continued to criticize the dismissal of the Lincoln Memorial vandalism case, which saw former Olympian David Hearn indicted for allegedly cutting the newly replaced lining of the reflecting pool at the national landmark just several months ago. The president pointed to a National Park Service employee’s account stating that she saw Hearn violently ripping and tugging at the pool’s coating just before authorities arrived at the scene.
Trump took to Truth Social where he shared a screenshot from court documents that provided details from the interview of two National Park Service employees who were cleaning the interior of the pool when Hearn approached the area. The document then reveals that one of the employees, who is identified as W-1, said that the former Olympian pulled out his phone and then took pictures or video clips of damage done to the pool.
The employee then recounted Hearn “knelt, placed both hands into the reflecting pool, below the surface of the water, and started to ‘violently’ rip and tug at a large portion of the blue pool coating.” The filing then says that W-1 asked the second employee to call the police and warned Hearn not to touch or pull at the pool’s coating.
The case was dismissed by United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, which earned her a healthy dose of criticism from the president just a short time following her decision. “Areas where they cut it and ripped it, but there’s a tape, and Jesse Watters, by the way, did a whole big thing on it. There’s a tape that’s out there that I posted on Truth, where you have people leaning over the side, the weakest part because of the flexibility. You know, it moves,” Trump said during an interview.
“It’s very complicated. It moves, and the softest part has to be flexible, and that’s the stuff you can cut. And these guys knew what they were doing, and they cut all the way along the base. Cut, cut, cut. Now, when Janine looked at it, it was the day after the Fourth of July with the largest fireworks display in the world, and the stuff was laying all over the pool, the fireworks, because they used the pool as one of the, and it was all over the pools the day after, very shortly thereafter,” he continued.
“But that was working beautifully, and it was vandalized. And if you look at the tape now, the tape isn’t a great tape in the sense that you, it’s a little hard to say who it exactly was, but it was people cutting this very expensive material, waterproofing material. Anyway, it looked beautiful, and then they cut it, and they vandalized,” President Trump explained.
“And we weren’t necessarily thrilled with the contractor, but they did a job, and they were fixing any problems. But then it got carried away because the judge was extremely unfriendly to Janine, and frankly, I think she choked because the judge was really vicious. Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her, and went after her department, and I guess she choked. I don’t know what the hell happened,” he stated in the interview.
"*" indicates required fields
Revisiting the issue, Trump, sharing the screenshot of the court documents, said, “ALERT: A National Park Service career employee, a highly credible witness, saw David Hearn (ActBlue) in broad daylight vandalize the Reflecting Pool by ‘violently’ ripping and tugging at the Pool’s somewhat delicate coating.” The president then said that the employee provided their account of the incident in early July.
Trump alleged that several other incidents of vandalism of have occurred in and around the Reflecting Pool, including the use of an “acid like material” on newly installed grass beside the pool, where “86 47” was allegedly written, which is code calling for the president’s death. He then revealed that some of the problems with the pool were due to “some contractor error” as crews worked to finish the project ahead of July 4.
Hearn was first indicted on one count of felony destruction of property on July 2, 2026. Officials allege that he caused over $1,000 worth of damage to the pool. Pirro’s office later stated that prosecutors were only given “barebones” reports from the Department of the Interior before seeking the indictment. “Had DOI been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment,” prosecutors wrote.
Featured Image: screenshot from embedded video