columbia u. s. atty

WASHINGTON — A former Olympian was indicted Thursday on a felony charge in what President Trump has called vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, where a renovation project he launched has been riddled with problems.

David Hearn, a former Olympic canoe racer, was indicted on a single count of property destruction in a Washington, D.C. court.

District of Columbia U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro said Hearn ripped up recently installed sealant on the pool in “a deliberate act” that caused more than $1,000 in damage. She accused him of “forcefully and violently” pulling up the bottom liner “with both hands” and acting belligerently toward an employee who told him to stop.

“This is a case with tremendous evidence,” she said, adding that authorities have made about six other misdemeanor arrests.

In a statement, Democracy Defenders Fund co-founder Norm Eisen and Mary Dohrmann, senior counsel at Washington Litigation Group, said that they represented Hearn and that the charges were “outrageous and should be alarming to every American.” Eisen and Dohrmann construed the case as representative of “the misuse of government power against an ordinary citizen based on a concocted narrative.”

Hearn didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment. He previously told the Associated Press that he reached into the pool on June 19 to examine the newly peeled coating. He said he briefly touched a chunk that was still attached to the side of the pool, then let go shortly after a park worker told him to.

“I’m a curious citizen,” Hearn said in a telephone interview last month. “I reached down to see what it felt like. It was very rubbery.”

Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Md., owned a company that made composite materials used to build watercraft.

Saying that he stopped by the pool during a 64-mile bike ride, Hearn said he was detained by National Guard troops and U.S. Park Police for five hours before being released.

Trump said last month that federal authorities made “multiple arrests” of people he accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool as he struggled to explain why the $16-million rehabilitation project he launched for the nation’s 250th anniversary seemingly backfired. Without providing any substantiation, he also said vandals dumped fertilizer into the pool and slashed the coating with a box cutter.

In subsequent days, National Guard members and the park police patrolled the deck around the Reflecting Pool as Trump’s administration faced a self-imposed deadline to fix a botched renovation before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration. Contractors and federal workers used chemicals and ozone nanobubbles to combat an algae bloom, and Trump has said that the problems probably require draining the pool again for liner repairs.

Whitehurst and Kinnard write for the Associated Press. Kinnard reported from Columbia, S.C.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday denied a request to disqualify top Justice Department officials from supervising the prosecution of the man charged with trying to kill President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Cole Tomas Allen had argued that involvement in his prosecution by Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche and District of Columbia U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro created a potential conflict of interest because they were among many administration officials present at the April dinner. Allen’s attorney also had raised concerns about the close friendship between Trump and Pirro, a former Fox News commentator.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden wrote in his ruling that neither their attendance at the dinner nor Pirro’s personal relationship with the president merited their disqualification. McFadden noted that Allen is not charged with attempting to harm Blanche and Pirro, and there is no evidence to suggest he even knew they would attend the dinner.

“They are unlikely to be trial witnesses, nor do they meet the legal definition of victims,” wrote McFadden, who was nominated to the bench by Trump.

Allen has been accused of trying to breach a security checkpoint armed with guns and knives. He has pleaded not guilty to various charges, including assaulting a federal official with a deadly weapon and attempted assassination of the president. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of the attempted assassination charge alone.

Allen also is accused of firing a shotgun at a Secret Service agent during the attack, which disrupted and ultimately prompted an early end to one of the highest-profile annual events in the nation’s capital. The Secret Service officer who was shot once in a bullet-resistant vest fired his own weapon five times without hitting anyone. Allen, of Torrance, California, was injured but was not shot.

Richer writes for the Associated Press.