CNN pundit Scott Jennings tore into the Justice Department on Friday after it dropped its charges against Olympian David Hearn, whom it initially accused of damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Jennings, usually known as one of the network’s stronger pro-Trump voices, even encouraged Hearn to take legal action against the DOJ to “get his name back.”
“I mean, on this one, the administration looks like a monkey having intimate relations with a football. It looks terrible, after everything that was said,” Jennings said on CNN’s “The Source.”
“This guy, he is owed an apology, and I don’t know what the procedures are for it, but he ought to sue anybody that he thinks he can to get his name back,” Jennings added.
The Justice Department moved to dismiss charges against Hearn — a canoeist who represented the U.S. at the Summer Olympics three different times — after U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro accused him of “forcefully and violently” pulling at the Reflecting Pool’s liner. In her filing, Pirro said the damage was due to the installation as well as a “rush to complete the project” before President Donald Trump’s America 250 celebration.
Prior to the dismissal, the president even scolded those he called “Deranged Vandals” for allegedly damaging the pool.
“What kind of animals would do such a thing? We are looking for a Vandal Proof material, but such a thing should not have been necessary. The Scum in Court will hopefully be prosecuted to the MAX,” Trump wrote in a July 17 Truth Social post.
However, Pirro wrote in the dismissal filed on Friday that “Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Jennings told guest host Erica Hill, “I have a strong reaction, to be honest with you, when people have their name dragged through the mud, and that’s obviously what happened here.”
“So I’m glad the charges got dropped, but they don’t have evidence. They shouldn’t be trying to go to trial with someone. So that’s good that they admitted it,” he continued. “They dragged this guy’s name through the mud, and I think at this point, also the administration just needs to get the pool fixed.”