Reflecting Pool case against David Hearn dismissed with prejudice

David Hearn, a former U.S. Olympic canoeist, had the criminal case against him permanently dismissed on Thursday by a District of Columbia Superior Court judge who cited President Donald Trump's political pressure as justification for barring prosecutors from ever refiling the charges, according to CNBC.

Judge Todd Edelman's dismissal with prejudice means Hearn cannot face the same charges again. In his order, Edelman wrote that Hearn "faces the unique possibility that the government will revive this case — one that it has already announced to be meritless — based on political pressure brought by the President of the United States upon his subordinate officers."

The case stemmed from an indictment alleging Hearn vandalized the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool by reaching into it and damaging its liner. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro's office later moved to drop the charges after the Department of the Interior shared evidence showing the pool's damage resulted from "flawed installation," not vandalism. A court filing from Pirro's office stated that the indictment would never have been pursued if the Interior Department had disclosed the evidence it already held.

Trump, who ordered renovations to the pool, rejected that conclusion and publicly criticized Pirro for abandoning the case, saying she "folded like an umbrella" and "choked," according to Axios . Edelman noted in his order that Trump had "demanded that the government reinstitute the prosecution, in part because of Mr. Hearn's political activity and the identity of one of his attorneys," and had raised the possibility of firing Pirro over the matter, according to NBC News .

Pirro's office sought a without-prejudice dismissal, a posture that would have kept the door open for prosecutors to bring fresh charges at a later date. At a September hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Spence argued that the public had an interest in preserving the grand jury's ability to act on any future evidence, yet when pressed by the judge he could not offer even a theoretical scenario that might rescue the case.

Edelman rejected that position. "The government has no right to retain the ability to compound the errors it has already made, or even to threaten to do so, at Mr. Hearn's expense," he wrote.

In a joint statement, Hearn's legal team — Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann, Steve Levin, and Michael Bromwich — celebrated the outcome as "a victory for the rule of law and for an innocent American seeking justice" and said the prosecution should never have been initiated. The White House and Pirro's office did not respond to requests for comment.