District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is getting mercilessly mocked on social media after her office secured a felony indictment against former Olympian David Hearn, who was accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
“There was an effort, a violent effort, to rip up the sealant from the bottom of the pool,” Pirro said at a press conference in which she provided few details on the evidence.
She claimed Hearn did more than $1,000 in damage ― but when asked how she’d prove that, the former Fox News host seemed to snap at the reporter.
“With an expert,” Pirro said. “Come to the trial.”
Pirro said Hearn used “his bare hands” to damage the pool.
The reporter asked if the use of bare hands could indicate that the pool sealant was already damaged.
“Oh, he damaged it,” she said. “He damaged the pool. He damaged this pool.”
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
In a statement to the Associated Press last month, Hearn contends he was simply examining an already detached piece of the Reflecting Pool’s lining.
“I’m a curious citizen,” Hearn said. “I reached down to see what it felt like. It was very rubbery.”
Democracy Defenders Fund, which says it is representing Hearn, released a statement released Thursday saying the charges are “outrageous and should be alarming to every American.” The organization said this was an attempt by the Trump administration “to shift blame for their own failures.”
Critics on social media were quick to liken the indictment to one brought against Sean Charles Dunn, the former Justice Department paralegal acquitted of misdemeanor assault charges brought against him by Pirro’s office after he was accused of hurling a sandwich at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agent last year.
Other critics questioned why the Trump administration was so adamant in pressing charges against Hearn when President Donald Trump pardoned the more than 1,500 rioters charged or convicted in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol: