Charges Dropped Against Ex-Olympian in Reflecting Pool Case, as Trump Team's Vandalism Claim Falls Apart
Federal prosecutors admit a contractor, not David Hearn, was responsible for damage to the Lincoln Memorial's renovated pool
By Nathaniel "Beltway" Steele
The felony indictment is gone. So is the story the Trump administration told about it.
Federal prosecutors this week dismissed charges against David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist accused of damaging the newly renovated Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial, after acknowledging that a contractor working on the site — not Hearn — was to blame for the damage, according to reporting by The New York Times and NBC News.
The case had been built on the administration's claim that Hearn vandalized the National Mall landmark. That claim, prosecutors now say, was false.
Neither the Justice Department nor Hearn's attorneys have released the full evidentiary record explaining how the initial charges were brought or what specifically changed the government's assessment. That gap matters: a man faced a federal felony count over damage prosecutors now say he didn't cause, and the public record so far offers no accounting of how that happened.
Hearn, who competed for Canada in canoeing, will not face trial. CBS News reported the government formally dismissed the indictment; NBC News' Garrett Haake reported the new evidence pointed squarely at the contractor.
The episode leaves unanswered questions about how the original charges were assembled and who, if anyone, will be held accountable for the delay and reputational damage to Hearn. The American Times has not independently reviewed the underlying evidence and could not confirm additional details beyond what prosecutors and the reporting cited here have disclosed.
Read the footnotes. The story's always in the footnotes.
— Compiled from reporting by The New York Times, NBC News, and CBS News.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."