'Bogus Indictment?' Raskin Opens House Probe Into DOJ Reflecting Pool Prosecution

The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday launched an investigation into the Trump administration's attempt to prosecute former Olympic canoeist David Hearn for felony vandalism amid reports that the White House is pushing the Justice Department to reopen the dropped case.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) announced the new probe in a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia. Pirro, a longtime friend and ally of President Donald Trump, dropped the vandalism case against Hearn earlier this month, saying in a filing that the damage he was accused of inflicting on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool "was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism."

"Did DOJ prosecutors knowingly bring a bogus indictment?" Raskin asked in his letter. "Did [the Department of Interior] withhold key evidence to blame the disastrous reflecting pool renovation on an innocent man? Did President Trump pressure or influence either department to engage in wrongful actions against an American citizen?"

"At a minimum, it appears that members of the Trump administration were ready and willing to imprison an innocent American for a decade in a desperate effort to soothe an ex-landlord’s wounded ego about a terrible paint job and wasteful contract,” Raskin added. "We must get to the bottom of these murky waters to rid our justice system of any and all residual contamination."

"The conclusion seems inescapable that at least one, if not both, of you have misled the American public about the evidence and used it to corrupt and weaponize our justice system."

News of Raskin's investigation came shortly before The Wall Street Journal reported that "White House officials have asked the Justice Department to consider a new prosecution" of Hearn "as President Trump fumes over US Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s decision to drop the case."

"A new prosecution of the defendant... would be highly unusual, especially after Pirro told a judge in surprising detail that the government’s decision to indict him on a felony charge was ill-informed," the Journal noted. "Pirro said a botched renovation, not vandalism, was responsible for the reflecting pool’s problems."

Trump publicly accused Pirro of "folding like a cheap umbrella" after she dropped the effort to prosecute Hearn, whose legal team is seeking documents to show whether Justice Department prosecutors "were candid with the grand jury" when pursuing their indictment against the 67-year-old former Olympian.

Pirro, a former Fox News host who boasted in July that she had "tremendous evidence" of Hearn's guilt, has privately blamed Burgum for the debacle.

In his letter on Tuesday, Raskin demanded that Pirro and Burgum turn over "all documents related to the decision to prosecute" Hearn as well as "all communication between DOJ, DOI, and the White House related to the prosecution." Raskin also demanded "all evidence presented to the grand jury in connection with the indictment" of Hearn, a Maryland resident and one of Raskin's constituents.

"The conclusion seems inescapable that at least one, if not both, of you have misled the American public about the evidence and used it to corrupt and weaponize our justice system against an innocent 67-year-old American citizen," Raskin wrote.