Transcription
We've got a civil war erupting within Trump's inner circle. So, here's what just happened. Back in June, the Trump administration spent $14 million on a rushed renovation of the reflecting pool, time to look nice for the America 250 celebration. Almost immediately, the new liner started peeling. Rather than admit that the $14 million rush job was, in fact, a rush job, the administration decided the far more convenient story was vandals did it.
"And our vandalism?" "Vandals." It was, you know, we have a hundred and we have a, I think, 293 hundred-foot slit right through it, probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind. Somebody went in with a knife and cut it. They cut it up good. And then they cut a 200, 350-foot slit in the form of lots of little slits. A real horrible stuff. They took razors and they started cutting this, you know, very expensive stuff. We caught some people vandalizing our beautiful reflecting pool. They tried to destroy it. They cut it up with a box knife and tried to destroy it.
Yes, those elusive vandals. Well, they needed a body to pin the blame on, and so they found that, a 67-year-old former Olympic canoeist named David Hearn. And Janine Pirro's office indicted him on a felony destruction of property charge, accusing him of, quote, "forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands."
"Today, a grand jury has returned a felony indictment against a defendant, David Hearn, for felony destruction of property, for which he faces 10 years in prison. The indictment is in response to an incident that occurred on June 19th of 2026, in which the defendant Hearn ripped a piece of recently installed sealant on the bottom of the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. The evidence shows, and we will prove beyond a reasonable doubt, that Hearn willfully destroyed property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. This was a deliberate act to damage the reflecting pool at the National Mall that members of the National Park Service actually have worked hard to restore and have witnessed. By Hearn's own admission, on June 19th, he reached down into the pool. Our evidence further shows that the National Park Service employees observed Hearn actually forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands. According to witnesses, Hearn damaged approximately 2 square feet of sealant from the bottom of the pool. A parks employee actually told Hearn to stop. To stop his behavior and stop what he was doing. Hearn reacted by shouting at that parks employee, saying that she cared too much about the reflecting pool and why did she even care since it wasn't her pool."
In fact, Pirro went so far as to call the evidence against Hearn tremendous. "Everything that the police do in this jurisdiction is reviewed by my office. We review it. This is a case with tremendous evidence, and this is a case where the evidence dictates where we land."
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said that he was 100% sure that vandals were responsible. "Peeled off. Why? Why did that happen? Do you know? It didn't peel off. There was, there was, there was vandalism. There was box, box cutters. There have been seven arrests. Uh, there was people literally trying to uh, destroy part of the monument. The reflecting pool's not just a pool on the Mall. It is part of the Lincoln Memorial. And if anybody says that they're going to go and vandalize that, it's no, it's no different than if someone was throwing paint on the ground."
"Sure that what happened with the liner was vandalism. You can prove it?" "Oh, yeah, absolutely you can. And we, and, and as we drain it, we've got all the photographs. We can see. I mean, there's, there's no possible way."
"Of a person or people cutting a 300 to 350-foot gash in the bottom of the reflecting pool?" "Dana, I'm not sure why you and others in the media think that you want to keep trying to question whether or not this. This is an industrial liner. Every farmer and rancher in America that's had their pickup liner lined by this spray-on liner knows that you literally, literally, it would never just like peel off or fall off. This is like a strong material. You know, and it's the size of eight football fields. And the only way you can end up with actual slices in one spot and not the other is that someone physically cut it."
So, that's a lot of promising up and down by Donald Trump, by Doug Burgum, by Jeanine Pirro, all of his people. Only small problem, none of it was true. On Friday, Pirro's own office filed a motion to drop the case, admitting in writing that the damage was, quote, "the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by DOI." DOI being Department of the Interior.
According to the filing, a National Park Service engineer had flagged the liner peeling weeks before Hearn was ever arrested. And the filing went further than that. It said the Interior Department withheld documents, video, and other evidence from prosecutors until after the case had already gone to a grand jury. And that if DOJ had gotten that information up front, they never would have sought the indictment in the first place. In plain English, that means the Department of Interior handed federal prosecutors a case built on a lie, let them indict an innocent 67-year-old man on a felony, and only fessed up to it once the walls started closing in.
So, Pirro, seeing the writing on the wall, dropped the charges because now it's clear that there's no case, which prompted Trump to take to Truth Social, writing the following: "Quote, I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, on the reflecting pool. I don't know what she was thinking. To me, it was a pure case of vandalism that included the grass, which had a big 8647 emblazoned on giant letters on it, and the other elements of the surrounding areas. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by vandals. President DJT."
Now, this is Donald Trump attacking one of his most devoted allies, a woman who spent years as a Fox News mouthpiece for him, for the crime of her admitting under oath in a legal filing that the emperor's $14 million pool has no clothes. To be clear, Pirro had no choice here. The Department of Interior already let the cat out of the bag. If Pirro didn't drop the charges, she would be prosecuting someone who she knew, under documented evidence, was innocent by her administration's own admission.
But of course, Trump's reaction wasn't, you know, relief that an innocent man wasn't going to go to prison. It was fury, rage that the official story was contradicted. And I think that tells you everything you need to know about this White House. It's not about what's true. It is about what version of events is convenient for Trump. The Interior Department needed a scapegoat so that nobody would ask hard questions about a botched $14 million contract. The DOJ needed a headline about cracking down on vandalism at the national landmark. And when the actual facts got in the way of both of those goals, the truth wasn't the thing that mattered to Donald Trump. Loyalty was. Even Jeanine Pirro, who is so far up Trump's ass that she could touch the back of his teeth, was apparently worthy of attacking here.
Now, Norm Eisen, who represents David Hearn through Democracy Defenders Fund, released the following statement, saying, "Quote, Trump and Burgum are attacking Pirro because she admitted what, because she admitted what we established in our legal filings all along. Trump's botched renovation was responsible for the damage, not Davey Hearn. However, Pirro's claim that she and her office were previously duped by Interior is nonsense. Starting immediately after arraignment, our motions repeatedly proved that the administration was to blame for the reflecting pool failures, not Davey. This is far from over, as we consider all legal remedies."
Now, to be clear, I'll be interviewing several attorneys, including Norm Eisen and Mark Elias, about the consequences for someone like Jeanine Pirro and her law license. So, if you want to see that coverage, and trust me, I think you will, then please make sure to subscribe to this channel. But, going back to Trump, this is somebody who spent an entire campaign railing against a two-tier justice system, against prosecutors who chase narratives instead of facts, against the purported weaponization of the DOJ. And the second his own hand-picked prosecutor admits that his administration weaponized the DOJ against an innocent man to cover up their own botched job, Trump doesn't apologize, he doesn't thank her for correcting the record, he goes on Truth Social and attacks. That is not somebody who cares about justice. It is somebody who only cares about protecting his own fragile ego, no matter whose life has to be destroyed in the process.
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Before you go, one quick request. It's become clear to me that this White House is dead set on preventing me from reaching any audience. Trump's decision to put me as the first name on his enemies list is a testament to that. But, it didn't quiet down then, and I won't do it now. So, please do me a favor and subscribe to this channel, hit the notification bell to be alerted when I post new content, and tune in when I publish videos so that they get picked up in the algorithm. The link to subscribe is right here on the screen. And together, let's make sure that we send a message to this administration that all they're doing by attacking me and independent media is making our platforms all the more powerful. Thanks.