Judiciary Committee Dems Open Investigation Into DOJ’s Reflecting Pool Revenge Prosecutions

from the what-are-we-reflecting-now? dept

The current president continues to self-destruct. Fortunately for us, he insists on doing this publicly.

After handing a donor and an unproven company the massive job of redoing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in “American flag blue” in hopes of being able to use it to celebrate himself during America’s 250th birthday, everything went tits tints up. The lining fell apart. And the “American flag blue” was soon replaced by an “Antifa Frog green” influx of algae.

Rather than demand an explanation from the no-bid contractors or simply decide to shift his focus elsewhere, Donald Trump immediately claimed (without evidence!) that this was the work of anti-American vandals. Trump’s claims were immediately echoed by both Interior Department head Doug Burgum and DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro. While all three insisted there was tons of damning evidence to support their outlandish claims, to date not one of them has produced anything remotely resembling a smoking gun.

Instead, we’ve been (mis)treated to malicious prosecutions that were immediately abandoned after the government’s own star grand jury witness said the damage supposedly caused by vandals was actually the result of shoddy workmanship.

Pirro did the right thing and dismissed charges against the Reflecting Pool defendants, starting with former Olympian David Hearn — the only one of the defendants facing a felony charge. Trump wanted Hearn cuffed and stuffed as a trophy of his ability to beat the truth at its own game.

Pirro went to bat for herself and threw Burgum under the bus following these dismissals. But that didn’t stop both Burgum and Trump from continuing to insist the Reflecting Pool failures were the work of vandals, all while publicly verbally assaulting Pirro for doing the same thing both of these men are doing: trying to save their own asses.

To this day, Trump continues to insist mountains of evidence exist. But the administration’s smoking gun more resembles a weapon purchased on layaway that it has yet to make a payment on. And after several days of being undercut by facts in literal evidence, Trump has finally changed his tune… a bit.

“There was substantial damage to the Reflecting Pool, also but, unfortunately, there is no video or proof, other than the damage, itself,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We are working on the Pool, and it will reopen shortly. As with many jobs, there was also some contractor error done by rushing the job for a July 4th opening, but it was a very small area of this massive Pool, and was relatively inconsequential.”

These are surprising admissions, given the source. Not only does Trump admit (while doing as much downplaying as possible) that some damage might be the result of his no-bid contractors, he has also admitted the government has no evidence to support criminal charges against anyone.

That admission gives credence to Pirro’s claims during the DOJ’s dismissals — that the DOJ had been misled by Doug Burgum and his DOI lackeys to believe evidence existed to support the charges. But that hardly excuses Pirro, who basically insisted that everyone the DOJ had charged was guilty AF during her appearance on Fox News earlier this year.

Whatever Pirro did or didn’t know at the point she decided to start pursuing these investigations may become public knowledge in (hopefully) the near future. Not content to just let Trump, Pirro, and Burgum walk away from a handful of revenge prosecutions performed for the sole purpose of allowing Trump to punish other people for his own failures, members of the House Judiciary Committee are mobilizing the system of checks-and-balances to find out who knew what and when. Greg Sargent has the details for The New Republic:

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are set to launch an investigation into the decision to criminally charge Hearn and others over the Reflecting Pool fiasco, I’m told. Although Democrats are in the minority, their probe offers a blueprint for what they’ll pursue with subpoena power if they control the House in six months.

This week, Representative Jamie Raskin—the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and potentially its future chair—will formally demand that the Justice and Interior Departments turn over a wealth of documents related to the charging decisions made in this case.

While it’s true this will run into considerable opposition from GOP Committee members, it’s not like the minority party has to ask permission to open investigations. However, they will need some Republican support if they want this investigation to be anything more than symbolic.

But that’s not the only pressure the Trump DOJ is facing. David Hearn’s case may have been dismissed (but notably, without prejudice, which means the government can always try again), but his lawyers aren’t quitting. They’ve been demanding grand jury documents for weeks.

Eisen and Hearn’s other lawyers are not letting this drop. For some time now, they’ve been seeking access to full transcripts of the grand jury proceedings—including instructions that prosecutors gave jurors on charging guidelines—to determine whether prosecutors misled them to secure Hearn’s indictment.

Trump obviously wants to keep this thing alive. He may live to regret this decision. The people opposed to him and his actions want the same thing, but for the purpose of pursuing justice, rather than — like Trump and his administration — hoping to pervert it further.

Filed Under: asshats, david hearn, doi, doj, donald trump, doug burgum, failure, interior department, jeanine pirro, malicious prosecution, reflecting pool, trump administration

Companies: atlantic industrial coatings, greenwater solutions