A D.C. judge has lambasted Donald Trump’s Justice Department goons over their efforts to blame someone else for the mess his administration has made of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Judge Todd E. Edelman, an Obama appointee, warned U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, 75, on Monday that the Trump administration is “operating at its own peril” in the way it has handled its case against David Hearn, 67, a former Olympic canoeist.
Trump, 80, and Pirro have accused Hearn of vandalizing the D.C. landmark after the president’s botched $16 million attempt to turn its waters “American flag blue” succeeded only in transforming the pool into a slimy green monstrosity. The renovation deal went in part to a Trump ally with a criminal history and no prior record of federal contracting work.
“The Reflecting Pool, so badly damaged by Deranged Vandals, has been emptied as the massive slash gets repaired,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday. “The Scum in Court will hopefully be prosecuted to the MAX,” he added—presumably referring to Hearn rather than the algal film that has covered the pool in recent weeks.
Hearn’s attorneys filed a motion on Thursday to have the case against him thrown out, arguing that Pirro had failed to preserve the government’s key evidence against him. The DOJ accused Hearn of “forcefully and violently” ripping up parts of the pool lining, which they claim led to the runaway algal bloom.
“Despite the importance of the pool liner to the case, in the brief period since June 19, 2026, the same government that presented and returned the indictment against Mr. Hearn has fenced off the scene, begun draining the pool yet again, and publicly announced its intention to repair the very liner whose condition is at issue,” they wrote.
Hearn, who competed for the United States in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Olympics, has pleaded not guilty to a single count of destruction of property. He told NBC News that he was arrested and detained for five hours after touching a piece of the lining of the pool that had detached “to satisfy my curiosity as a citizen of what was happening with all the algae and the peeling blue coating.”
“The condition of the Reflecting Pool was the same after I stepped away from the water as it was before I got there,” he told the network.
The Washington Post reports that Judge Edelman denied Hearn’s attorneys’ motion to have the case dismissed outright but asked prosecutors to account for the current status of work at the site. They could not, telling the court that they were unsure whether the evidence against Hearn had been preserved.
Edelman, who set a trial date for September 28, also asked why the Trump administration could not “maintain the status quo” for the rest of the week to avoid access to evidence becoming an “issue at this trial,” according to News From the States.
The judge also urged the “government to not do anything further” on the pool before denying Hearn’s motion to dismiss the case, the outlet reports. Edelman called the motion “entirely premature” but did not prohibit Hearn’s attorneys from filing another motion to dismiss going forward.
Edelman conceded that the prosecutors, “personally, are not in control” of renovations at the Reflecting Pool. He added that “there may well not be any prejudice,” meaning the case could still go ahead, even as he warned that the government was endangering its chances of a successful prosecution.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Justice Department for comment on this story.
