U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro made a significant enough mistake that one legal expert says was incredibly stupid.
A bombshell report on Monday revealed that the government’s own witness in the David Hearn case over the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Hearn is being accused of grabbing the pool lining with both hands and ripping it up.
The DOJ’s witness revealed that the damage the DOJ alleges came from Hearn was already there before Hearn arrived.
An even bigger bungle, however, comes from an observation from writer and lawyer Amee Vanderpool, who runs the “Shero” Substack.
Citing an NBC News report about the case, saying that the person who indicated the pool was already damaged spoke to the grand jury about the damage prior to Hearn.
Beyond the fact that it sinks the DOJ’s case, Vanderpool explained that by “using this” information, lawyers for Hearn “can now get all of the Reflecting Pool repair documents (and all documentation that is missing) in disclosure.”
Hearn’s lawyers are asking for information about the disclosure and legal instructions grand jurors were given. They want to see the trial minutes, which will detail the dialogue line by line.
In a different case involving six activists and politicians who protested outside of an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, it was discovered that the grand jury was being given conflicting information that wasn’t factual and that the prosecutors were talking about defendants as if they were already found to be guilty. Anyone who looked to be wavering was excused from the jury.
It’s unclear whether the DOJ did the same in this case, but Hearn’s lawyers having access to all of the information may reveal what happened in the grand jury as well as a slate of other details.
Hearn’s lawyers will be able to see documents involving the Reflecting Pool contractors, why they were chosen in a no-bid contract and why the costs were so much higher than President Donald Trump said they would be.
“Jeanine Pirro is an idiot to pursue this,” said Vanderpool.
Last week, the judge in the case warned the DOJ that all of the workers looking at fixes to the pool and tearing up the liner were tampering with evidence.
“Non-preservation,” the judge told the DOJ, “the government does it at its own peril.”
One of Hearn’s long-time friends, Adam Van Grack, who once served as chair of the U.S. Olympic governing body for canoe and kayak sports, said that going after Hearn was a mistake.
“The U.S. government could not have picked a worse person to be the headliner felony defendant in this trial,” Van Grack told The Atlantic.