President Trump says he hasn't decided whether to remove his own DC prosecutor after she dismissed a felony charge against a former Olympian, a case Trump insists should never have been dropped.
Trump told reporters Tuesday night in Los Angeles, just before boarding Air Force One, that he had spoken directly to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro about the collapsed prosecution of David Hearn, a former U.S. Olympic athlete charged with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. "I told her I was not happy," Trump said. But when pressed on whether Pirro would keep her job, he offered no guarantee: "I haven't made a determination."
The exchange capped a turbulent 48 hours for Pirro, the former Fox News host and ex-judge whom Trump appointed as the top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. in May 2025. Her office moved last week to dismiss the lone felony count against Hearn, property destruction carrying up to ten years in prison, after new evidence emerged suggesting the damage to the pool was caused by a botched contractor installation, not vandalism.
Trump made clear he sees it differently. In the Oval Office on Monday, he unloaded on Pirro in front of reporters:
"I was disappointed with Jeanine Pirro, really disappointed with Jeanine Pirro. She folded like an umbrella, and people get away with things, and it's a disgrace."
He went further: "Frankly, I think she choked." He added, "I don't know what the h*** happened."
The Reflecting Pool, one of the most photographed landmarks in the country, underwent a $16 million renovation that Trump personally championed as part of a broader push to beautify the nation's capital ahead of America's 250th anniversary. A Virginia-based contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, won a $14.7 million no-bid contract to repaint and waterproof the pool's concrete floor.
In June, portions of the pool liner detached from the bottom and floated to the surface, drawing public ridicule. Hearn was spotted reaching into the water to examine a piece of the peeling liner. He shared a photo of the damage with the Daily Mail. U.S. Park Police arrested him, and a grand jury indicted him on one felony count of property destruction, alleging he caused more than $1,000 in damage.
Hearn pleaded not guilty last month. His trial had been set for September 28 in D.C. Superior Court.
Then the case unraveled. A court filing released Friday cited newly discovered documents indicating the damage "was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented" by the Interior Department. Prosecutors in Pirro's office concluded that the new information "undermines the evidentiary basis for the indictment."
The filing was blunt:
"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."
Atlantic Industrial Coatings had publicly acknowledged before the indictment that portions of its work required repair. The poor condition of the pool was, in the defense team's words, "plainly visible" for weeks and documented through photographs, video, and news reports. Yet prosecutors pressed ahead with the felony charge anyway.
On Tuesday, Hearn's defense team filed a 28-page motion in D.C. Superior Court urging a judge to permanently dismiss the case and block the Trump administration from reviving it. The motion laid out a damaging sequence of prosecutorial missteps. Trump has previously moved swiftly to remove prosecutors who fell short of his expectations, and the Hearn case now threatens to become a case study in why.
The defense argued that the government's key eyewitness was never presented to the grand jury. A key prosecution witness on damages "stated that the repairs at issue would have been necessary regardless of Mr. Hearn's alleged conduct and could not identify any additional cost caused by Mr. Hearn." In other words, even the government's own expert could not pin the bill on Hearn.
Hearn's attorneys did not hold back:
"Defying both decency and common sense, the government proceeded to indict Mr. Hearn before it had obtained or evaluated the information necessary to establish a good-faith basis for the charge."
They added that "from the outset, the evidence showed that the pool liner was already failing and that Mr. Hearn did not cause the damage alleged in the indictment." The defense accused the government of disregarding readily available evidence that the liner was failing because of installation flaws, evidence that existed before any charges were filed.
Trump's public rebuke of Pirro began before the Monday Oval Office remarks. He posted on Truth Social over the weekend, writing: "I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don't know what she was thinking?"
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum backed Trump's position. "The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool," Burgum said, adding, "We won't back down to deranged people who want to destroy, deface, or degrade our monuments." That statement directly contradicted the legal conclusion reached by Pirro's own prosecutors.
By Tuesday night in Los Angeles, Trump was still insisting the pool had been vandalized. "I just think she was totally wrong," he told reporters. "They did a beautiful job, there were a couple of little things but that was not a big deal and everybody saw the vandalism, all you have to do is look at the tape." He claimed to have "a witness or two witnesses that saw the vandalism" and called it "major vandalism."
Those claims sit uneasily alongside the court record. Pirro's own filing said the new evidence made it "difficult to attribute the widespread damage" to vandalism at all. The defense motion noted that the government's key eyewitness never appeared before the grand jury. Trump has not identified his witnesses publicly, and the court filings do not reference them.
Fox News reported that Trump acknowledged possible contractor issues but insisted "the major damage was caused by VANDALS", directly contradicting the legal conclusion his own appointed U.S. Attorney reached after reviewing the evidence.
The Reflecting Pool case is not the only matter where Pirro has come up short of the administration's expectations. She was unable to indict former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for alleged wasteful spending. She failed to secure indictments against six Democratic lawmakers who posted a video reminding U.S. military personnel of their obligation to refuse illegal orders. And prosecutors under her watch did not indict New York Attorney General Letitia James, a vocal Trump critic, for alleged bank fraud and alleged false statements related to a property purchase.
Trump had initially tapped Ed Martin for the D.C. U.S. Attorney post, but Martin could not be confirmed because of holdouts among Republican senators. Pirro, a former Westchester County district attorney and judge who joined Fox News in 2006, was Trump's fallback choice. She had previously pledged an aggressive approach to D.C. crime, but her tenure has now produced a string of high-profile disappointments for a president who demands results from his appointees.
Pirro was spotted entering the West Wing on Monday evening. She has not made any public statement in response to Trump's criticism. Whether she left that meeting with her job intact, or with marching orders to reverse course, remains unclear.
The Washington Examiner reported that Republican operatives close to the White House do not expect Pirro to be fired, noting Trump's pattern of reconciling with officials who demonstrate loyalty. One former Trump official said Pirro could save her position by refiling charges or making a public show of loyalty: "If you do something to prove your loyalty, he will generally let you back in the circle." She was reportedly seen leaving the West Wing with a box and briefcase, fueling further speculation.
Trump has shown no hesitation in the past when it comes to removing officials who fall out of step. He has publicly called for firings over far less than a collapsed felony prosecution. Whether Pirro gets a second chance or a pink slip may depend on what she does next, and whether the president's anger cools before he makes his "determination."
Whatever happens to Pirro, the facts of the Hearn case tell their own story. A former Olympian was arrested, indicted on a felony, and faced up to a decade in prison for reaching into a pool to look at a piece of liner that was already peeling off because a contractor botched the installation. The government's own witnesses couldn't tie the damage to him. The contractor had already admitted repairs were needed. The evidence was publicly available before the grand jury ever convened.
Hearn's defense team argued the administration was trying to build a false narrative, that issues with the Reflecting Pool were due to vandalism rather than shoddy work by a contractor holding a $14.7 million no-bid deal. The collapse of that prosecution raises uncomfortable questions about who decided to charge Hearn in the first place, why readily available evidence was ignored, and whether the case was driven by the facts or by the political need to protect a high-profile renovation project.
The judge has not yet ruled on the defense motion for permanent dismissal. If granted, it would foreclose any attempt to refile charges. If denied, Pirro, or whoever holds the job, could theoretically take another run at Hearn.
When the government charges a citizen with a felony, the bare minimum the public should expect is that prosecutors checked the evidence first. In this case, they didn't, and an American who served his country as an Olympian paid the price.
