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« Last post by rainman2 on Today at 01:52:36 PM »
Trump is pushing he DOJ to prosecute Olympic canoeist AGAIN for vandalism after its own case against him COLLAPSED!
Donald Trump’s obsession with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool just took an even darker turn.
White House officials are now pressuring the Justice Department to find some other way to prosecute the man Trump still blames for damaging the pool – even after federal prosecutors admitted their original case was built on bad information and dropped it.
The Wall Street Journal reports that White House officials ordered the DOJ to consider a new prosecution of Olympic canoeist David Hearn after Trump repeatedly attacked U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for abandoning the case.
Officials in the department’s criminal division are now exploring whether another case, even with toning the charges down to misdemeanors, is even possible.
The saga started when Hearn stopped at the Reflecting Pool during a June bike ride and reached into the water to touch a piece of coating that he says had already detached from the bottom.
Prosecutors first charged him with a misdemeanor, then dramatically escalated it to a felony.
Then the government’s own evidence blew the case apart. Pirro ultimately told a federal judge that the decision to indict Hearn had been “ill-informed” and that a botched renovation – not vandalism – was responsible for the Reflecting Pool’s problems.
That should have been the end of it. Trump was furious. He accused Pirro of having “folded like an umbrella,” demanded she “revisit her hastily made decision,” and on Sunday claimed a “highly credible witness” saw Hearn “ripping and tugging” at the coating.
Now we learn his pressure campaign didn’t stop with angry Truth Social posts. The White House reached out to the Justice Department, and officials are actually examining whether there is another way to charge Hearn.
Hearn’s attorney called the prospect “a shocking first,” describing it as “bringing back from the dead a case that the DOJ lost by its own admission that it lacked the evidence to convict.”
Trump may not get his do-over, though. The judge who handled the original case will hold a hearing next month on whether to dismiss it “with prejudice,” which could permanently block the government from charging Hearn again over the same alleged conduct.
The timing makes the intervention even more troubling. Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense attorney, was sworn in as attorney general Monday after arguing that presidents have the “right” and even “duty” to weigh in on Justice Department investigations – a sharp break from the traditional wall between the White House and individual criminal cases.
The Journal reports the discussions about Hearn have not yet reached Blanche himself.
But look at what has already happened: Federal prosecutors brought a felony case, examined their own evidence, concluded it couldn’t support a conviction, and dropped it.Trump refused to accept that result. He publicly savaged Pirro, saying she had “choked” and “folded like an umbrella.”
The dispute even exploded into a screaming match in the Oval Office, where Pirro arrived with a box of evidence and argued that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s department had given prosecutors bad information. She made clear she was not willing to jeopardize her legal credentials by pursuing a case the evidence couldn’t support.
Now Trump wants another bite at the apple.
If the Justice Department gives it to him after its own U.S. attorney fought inside the Oval Office to explain why the evidence couldn’t sustain the case, the real story won’t be what happened at the Reflecting Pool.
It will be what happens when a president decides that evidence, prosecutors, and the law itself are not allowed to tell him no.
This is how the rule of law dies – one presidential tantrum at a time. If you agree, like and share this post.
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