The Justice Department’s inspector general is refusing to investigate what went wrong with the botched criminal case against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn over damage at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, including whether there was any criminality on prosecutors’ parts, Hearn’s legal team said.
In a letter Wednesday to Inspector General Don R. Berthiaume, Hearn’s attorneys asked his office to reconsider its decision because of evidence of “numerous potential criminal violations — possible crimes committed solely by DOJ personnel, as well as crimes committed jointly by DOJ” employees and personnel from the Interior Department.
The inspector general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hearn’s attorneys had asked the watchdog to investigate “the incompetence and wrongdoing” of Justice Department employees, writing that the “sprint to charge Mr. Hearn mirrored the rushed renovation” of the Reflecting Pool itself.
Hearn was charged in July with causing felony damage to President Donald Trump’s renovations of the Reflecting Pool.
Trump had blamed the damage at the pool on Hearn and other “vandals.” The office of the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, moved to dismiss the case at the end of July, saying it had found the damage was “the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings.”
A judge later tossed the case and barred the government from trying to charge Hearn again.
Hearn’s attorneys contend he never should have been charged in the first place. They allege that the evidence shows prosecutors rushed to bring the case, despite already having evidence in their possession showing that Hearn’s putting his hands in the pool did not cause “any harm or monetary loss” — necessary elements of the felony he was charged with.
They also cited an incident in the grand jury proceeding in which a witness for the government “testified — truthfully — that the repairs were needed regardless of any actions by Mr. Hearn, that the witness did not know whether Mr. Hearn damaged the Reflecting Pool lining in any way, and that the witness could not quantify any incremental cost of repair caused by Mr. Hearn’s actions.”
“Evidently disappointed with the testimony and realizing that it was fatal to its case, the government appears to have caused the witness to change that testimony,” the letter said. “After a 21-minute off-the record break, the witness returned to the stand and — after previously being unable to testify that Mr. Hearn caused any monetary damage whatsoever — the witness now testified that the damage was ‘definitely’ $1,000 or more,” the threshold needed to bring a felony charge.
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The letter also said the inspector general needs to investigate “whether prosecutors knowingly caused the witness to change his testimony on the magnitude-of-loss issue and to provide the false testimony the government needed to be able to charge a felony.”
It also asked the inspector general to look into Pirro’s public comments about the case, which it said were prejudicial.
“It is now undisputed — by everyone except President Trump —that Mr. Hearn should never have been arrested and certainly should not have been indicted. The OIG must now investigate whether the DOJ personnel responsible for this travesty engaged in misconduct that violated Mr. Hearn’s civil rights,” the letter says.
Hearn’s attorneys first asked the inspector general to investigate the case this month. The new letter said the IG responded that it would not open an investigation and that the matter was one for the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which has authority to investigate “certain categories of misconduct committed by DOJ lawyers.”
Hearn’s lawyers noted that that office does not have criminal jurisdiction and said it has been gutted by the Trump administration, with the number of personnel cut in half.
The “plain fact is that OPR is no longer a fully functioning entity capable of conducting rigorous oversight. Recent reporting has documented that the number of new OPR investigations is at a 20-year low at the same time as the number of complaints is spiraling to unprecedented levels,” the letter says, adding that if the inspector general doesn’t step in, “the investigation will simply not take place.”
The letter said the Interior Department inspector general’s office is investigating Hearn’s allegations about its personnel.
Trump fired 18 inspectors general upon his return to office last year, including the Interior Department’s.
Inspectors general are typically considered to be independent figures within government agencies, and they are expected to investigate allegations of waste, fraud and abuse of power within their departments.
Trump said at the time of the firings that “I did it because it’s a very common thing to do,” even though the abrupt terminations were highly unusual.
“Some people thought that some were unfair or were not doing the job. It’s a very standard thing to do,” he said.
