Trump Invents Vandals, and a Sixty Seven Year Old Man Is Supposed to Go to Prison for It

We have already reported on this absurdity in our news briefs. The farce has continued, and it has now grown into a criminal prosecution. David Hearn, sixty seven years old, a resident of Bethesda, Maryland, and a three time Olympic sprint canoeist, appeared before the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on Thursday, where one of his attorneys entered a plea of not guilty on his behalf. Last Thursday, a grand jury indicted him on one count of malicious destruction of property, a felony under American law, based on a single charge and on alleged damages exceeding one thousand dollars.

The alleged crime took place at the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Before the celebrations marking the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of American independence, the President ordered the pool renovated at a cost of sixteen million dollars, and the project was plagued by problems from the very beginning. Contractors installed equipment designed to generate microscopic air bubbles and infuse the water with ozone to kill algae and bacteria because the pool had been overtaken by an algal bloom. When blue fragments of the newly applied coating began floating on the surface, officials acknowledged that the pool would likely have to be drained again so the lining could be repaired.

The President found an explanation for that failure, although he presented no evidence. According to him, vandals had poured fertilizer into the water and slashed the protective coating with a utility knife. More than two and a half centuries ago, it was already argued that punishment must remain proportionate to the offense, and there were warnings that once the power to punish loses that balance, it no longer serves justice but spreads fear. Hearn himself describes what happened very differently. On June 19, during a sixty four mile bicycle ride, he stopped at the pool, reached into the water to examine the loose coating, briefly touched a section hanging from the wall, and immediately let go when a National Park Service employee told him to stop. He was then detained for five hours by members of the National Guard and officers with the U.S. Park Police.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, formerly a television host on a conservative news network and appointed to her office by the President, tells a different story. According to Pirro, Hearn deliberately tore away freshly applied coating and acted defiantly when an employee instructed him to stop. She declared that the destruction of the nation's monuments and public spaces represented an affront to the country's shared history. The law applies equally to everyone, she said on Thursday, and anyone who breaks it must face the consequences. Last week she also announced that six additional people had been arrested on misdemeanor charges in connection with the Reflecting Pool project.

Inside the courtroom, however, the case appeared far smaller than the public statements had suggested. Judge Carmen McLean declined to place Hearn under court supervision while he awaits trial, and scheduled the next hearing for August 5. Prosecutor Kevin Reddington requested no supervision, asking only for an order requiring Hearn to stay away, without specifying in court exactly what he was supposed to stay away from. Mary Dohrmann, one of Hearn's attorneys, described her client as a law abiding citizen and a respected member of the community, adding that the government's evidence was weak.

Norman Eisen, who also represents Hearn, said after the hearing that every American should be deeply troubled by this prosecution. Touching the Reflecting Pool is not a crime, he said. In a statement issued by his law firm, the indictment was described as being built on a fabricated story and reflecting an attempt by the government to shift responsibility for its own failures. The justice system exists to establish facts, not to provide political cover.

Outside the courthouse, dozens of supporters gathered with handmade signs, chanting Hearn's name. One woman arrived wearing an inflatable frog costume. Hearn stepped in front of the cameras, smiled, said nothing, raised his right hand, and clenched his fist as he walked away. Adam Van Grack, former chairman of the national governing body for American canoe and kayak sports, stood among the supporters. He said Hearn had spent decades volunteering to maintain the National Park Service property along the Potomac River that canoe athletes used as a training course. To portray a man who devoted his life to representing his country internationally and protecting National Park Service property as a malicious destroyer of federal property, he said, was an accusation that struck the conscience and made no sense to anyone who knew him.

And so this Thursday ends with a Reflecting Pool that continues to peel apart, a memorial whose surrounding plaza is still being cleaned by workers, and a sixty seven year old man who now faces prosecution for a felony. Cesare Beccaria understood that there is no clearer sign of a weak government than excessive severity. Anyone who pours sixteen million dollars into a hole and then prosecutes the man who reached into it to see what had gone wrong has proved something, just not what was intended.