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Notes -
In the Small-Scale Sunday of June 21, 2026, there was this thread talking about the possibility of vandals being the cause of the debacle with the Reflecting Pool and its 2026 renovations. To summarize the various positions of mottizens:
The only person that was ever indicted is former olympian David Hearn, with the grand jury indictment announced by Jeanine Pirro on July 2:
In the same press conference Pirro had this to say when pressed:
Well, on Friday, DOJ has moved to dismissed the indictment:
I highly recommend reading the motion to dismiss, it’s hilarious to see how Pirro’s office is trying to cover their ass by repeatedly pointing fingers at Doug Burgum’s DOI for giving them incomplete information.
My takeaway from this is that my position is correct regarding incompetence. Incompetence at planning the renovations. Incompetence by the contractor and overspraying. Incompetence by DOI officials and personnel in protecting the Reflecting Pool (or at the very least chase down the vandals if they exist). Incompetence by DOI officials in not giving Pirro’s attorney office complete evidentiary information. In fact, I give points to Pirro and her office for approving this dismissal, she must have known that Trump wouldn’t like it:
As for corruption, well I think it’s very likely but it’s also unlikely that Trump’s government or the Republicans would investigate themselves.
I also had the following few thoughts:
Edit 1: Looks like Trump got some more words today about how much Pirro "folded like an umbrella" and "choked" on this case.
Edit 2: David Hearn was the only one indicted, there were at least 3 others also charged and publicly named but their cases were also dropped. Earlier I said David Hearn was the only one charged.
That seems like a really bad motion. Literally the evidence is “there were construction problems and therefore the multiple first hand witnesses who saw this person doing damage isn’t true.”
They saw him pulling up pieces of the liner, with his hands. If these pieces of liner were loose already due to construction problems, the "damage" is nonexistent (they'd have to be removed anyway).
Except it was described as being violent. Perhaps there was something loose but violently pulling the liner would make it worse.
While federal law's text doesn't care about the actual impact on repairs rather than just whether a nominal damage was done -- people have been got for vandalizing federal property slated for demolition, albeit only under the misdemeanor version -- in practice juries tend to be pretty skeptical and the actually impact matters for the specific version of the crime. I'm pretty harsh on DC juries, but I don't know that I could vote to convict here, at least from the public information. He probably had some malicious intent, if the "awfully sensitive" comment holds up, but that really shouldn't be enough on its own.
I think there was zero chance of winning even if the construction was perfect.
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Charges have been dropped, by the Trump administration, in the most publicly embarrassing way possible, and we still have people in the comments endeavoring to be more Catholic than the Pope saying that it was definitely vandalism.
The tide is going out and we're finding out who was skinny dipping.
I find this to be the lowest form of commentary. Instead of making an argument you get to sit on the sidelines smugging that the other people making an argument look ridiculous. Without even having the courage to frame it as an argument to specific people that can then win or lose on its own merits.
At the self-appointed "only plan-truster on the Motte" I'll add then -- Trump himself didn't back down! Trump said that Pirro choked. The pope is still Catholic.
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Did you read the motion? I just don’t see how the fact that there were issues with the construction means the multiple eye witness accounts were incorrect.
The prosecuting attorneys, who wrote the damn motion and are more familiar with the facts of the case than we are, despite their clear incentives both personal and from above to prosecute, thought that the shoddy workmanship undermined their case to the point that it was unprovable. The prosecutors publicly embarrassed themselves rather than proceed with the case. Because there was no possible way they could prove a crime here. Do you think that they put themselves in this position for fun?
The motion consists of the prosecutors outlining at length why they think that the issues with the construction mean that the multiple eyewitness accounts are either incorrect or irrelevant to the indictment handed down. To defend the original indictment means asserting that one knows more than the prosecutors, or assuming that the prosecutors appointed by Trump, who were willing to work on the original indictment, have suddenly become part of a TDS conspiracy for...reasons.
Assumes facts not in evidence. The line prosecutors are likely all strongly anti Trump or think it’s a waste of time focusing on a relatively low level crime. The only person with skin in the game is the AUSA. So on the one hand her office is pissed at her and the judge is giving her grief and on the other hand her boss wants her to prosecute. She also knows she will lose the court regardless of the evidence given the jury pool.
It is a tough situation for the AUSA and because of that the paragraph you quote isnt necessarily indicative. If you read the motion, the paragraph you posted is incorrect. All the additional information provided is that at least some of the damage is attributed to poor construction. But the evidence is also consistent with vandals making it worse.
You can claim the prior portion of the motion was wrong but it means some of the motion is wrong. I would wager the evidence was described correctly and the conclusion is wrong.
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Binion's takes continue to be some of the best https://x.com/billybinion/status/2084355849045123302
Like seriously, wtf does Pirro get out of this? She sold her soul, hurt innocent people through lawfare, wasted government resources (both time/manhours spent going after actual criminals and money) and in the end didn't even manage to make Trump or MAGA happy.
What Jeanine Pirro gets out of it is that she gets to be US Attorney for DC. Pirro is nominally qualified for her position, but in practice has been a tv personality for the past 20 years; no other administration would put her in this kind of role.
With Trump's coterie of subordinates, there's a pretty clear mix of opportunists and sycophants. One of the attractions of working for Trump is that because he can't/won't source talent from conventional recruitment pools, you can jump directly to positions of power if you know the right people and are willing to lick boot.
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This is just an argument for never getting into politics. If the goal is to feel as though you have never "debased yourself" then your only option is to be an irrelevant commenter like Billy Binion, always out of the fray and above it all.
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Glad to see Reason is still in business; I wasn't aware. Of course, this fellow did, by all the eyewitness accounts, reach into the reflecting pool and start pulling the lining up, to the point where the park police noticed and demanded he stop, but maybe, given his background, he's just a pool lining autist, and also a true libertarian who believes that every citizen has a right to audit the structural integrity of the pool without state coercion interfering.
The case was dropped after all so what Binion is really saying is don't harass random citizens with weak lawfare just to cover for incompetent contracting work.
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Yeah, I don't know what is wrong with the Reflecting Pool or how it happened, but I don't think "well this is already broken, let me rip it to bits" is acceptable. If he did what is claimed, then it is vandalism. It doesn't matter if the lining was already torn, he made things worse.
Imagine your car is stopped with a flat tyre. A passer-by then breaks in a window. "What, this vehicle was already not functional, I didn't do anything wrong!" Would anyone accept that?
Is breaking a window of a car with a flat tire the right comparison? Pulling up a bit of lining that was already torn seems more like walking by a house that's already collapsed, and picking up a handful of rubble on a whim. You could uncharitably describe the latter as "pulling bricks right out of the wall", but vandalism seems a stretch.
Picking up a bit of broken-off lining is not what he's supposed to have done, though. He was yanking it up and didn't stop when instructed to do so.
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How is it not vandalism to rip off a piece of a national monument? You have to reach into the pool to grab a piece, it's not just laying on the sidewalk raking with the leaves.
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Maybe when she shares a commiserating drink with all the other people who sold their souls, hurt innocent people through lawfare and wasted government resources, she can at least feel good that she didn't overplay so cartoonishly hard that she helped Trump get re-elected.
That doesn't explain anything, it's just whataboutism.
And even revenge doesn't make much sense as a motive, like at least with the hilariously awful Comey indictment the person being targeted is James Comey so harassing him is like understandable as the motive. But Hearn is just some random guy, it seems incredibly petty to sacrifice so much face and embarrass yourself in basically every imaginable way just to legally harass a nobody.
Yeah, totally random, self-described "concerned citizen" and double-digit ActBlue donor who knew enough about the topic to make a trip because he wanted to check it out for himself while somehow completely missing all the culture war angles, and so stuck his arm into a pool that you're not allowed to touch to feel it and wriggle damaged parts around just out of idle curiosity, but he definitely says that he didn't affect it in any way.
Completely random guy being harassed for literally no reason.
Nah, it's just rubbing your nose in your Arctic research station levels of isolated demands.
If you want a more general, real answer, it's because that's the meta. You immediately drop double-barrel, incendiary shells of rhetoric even over minor things, because the other side is going to do the same or worse, and they will never, ever, ever, show a shred of respect or grace for any kind of retiring humility or professionalism. It's not like you'd be granting respect if they'd said something bland and non-committal about "seeing where the process goes". It's not like anyone making a culture war bonfire out of a pool renovation would have chilled down a single degree - they (you) would have just kept heaping wild accusations onto the pyre*. And it's not like there aren't much more egregious examples to throw shade at elsewhere.
You just only ever notice it when you see an opportunity to pounce on the side you dislike.
*Turing Test Writing Challenge: SecureSignals style post blaming the pool issues on Israel. There was a person holding a "First they came for the algae..." sign...
The case was dropped due to lack of evidence (despite the constant lies beforehand saying there was tons of it), so yes. He got harassed for no reason, literally nothing came out of it.
Exactly, whataboutism. It didn't matter whether or not the soviets were right in their critiques of the US, what mattered is that they used the US as an excuse for their own misdoings. If the soviets wanted to defend their actions on the merits, they would have done such.
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Sure, I’ll take a crack at it, it’s a beautiful night for an argument.
Have you been to Washington DC lately? Trump got the National Guard to clean up the worst of the homeless blight. Union Station looks beautiful right now. Trump got money to turn the fountains back on. They’re gorgeous, they hadn’t been turned on in decades. I was out with a friend near the Capitol at night and we were stunned. I’ve even heard liberals admit that Meridian Hill Park is more beautiful now, thanks to Trump.
There are still some problem spots. There’s a church downtown, I think it’s the one on I street and 5th Northwest, where the ministry lets the homeless congregate on their property in a tent city. Sometimes I’ve seen them congregating on the bridges just within the Virginia boundaries. Virginia doesn’t like them either, but they’re not under Trump’s control and won’t just do what he tells them.
Have you ever been to a Trump property? His hotels are genuinely very nice, his restaurants have good food, the service is excellent. The Trump Hotel in Vegas has a good claim to being the nicest hotel on the Strip. The Trump Hotel in DC has noticeably declined ever since they got turned into the Waldorf — both of the last two times I’ve been there the wait staff have hassled me over $300 because some man who sat at the same table as me walked away to some other side of the room and they wanted to close the table down. And Trump Tower in New York is a gorgeous building that genuinely turned the corner for Manhattan in the 80s. The last time I was there, which admittedly was a few years ago, huge swathes of it had to be closed down to security threats. There are always liberals who want to vandalize it.
So now we come to the Reflecting Pool. There were protesters holding up signs saying that between Trump and the algae, they were rooting for the algae. There’s a minor black market selling chips off the tarp, because people reached their hands in and got some. There are bars all over town where you can order drinks like a “Blue-Green Reflecting Pool Margarita”.
There is, in short, a whole class of people who are cheering for decay, they want to see things break because they get to gloat when it happens, and when it does happen they will deny any responsibility as they cheered it on.
I am now receiving a lecture in incompetence from those people.
Look, it’s actually not a blow to my ego if the pool guys did a shoddy job. That happens sometimes. It’s not like Trump personally drained the pool and laid down the tarp down. He’s just going to get some guys to fix it.
You probably see that as a failure because you’re not used to setbacks because you’ve never built anything.
It’s not like Trump interrupted the left’s stellar record of building things on time and under budget. Those fountains have been off for twenty years and the Reflecting Pool has been collecting algae for at least that long. What did Biden do about it? Bush? Obama spent multiples of what Trump has spent so far and didn’t get any better outcomes. But I don’t get treated to rants about how Obama was incompetent. All I’m hearing here are defenses of how Democrats had such integrity because they conducted go-nowhere investigations so they could get a TV spot about how they’re willing to criticize their president. Maybe if I went looking I could find examples of Republicans criticizing President Trump, I don’t know, it might be really hard.
So it’s Trump’s Fault because, why, exactly? He skipped the biddings process? The famous Washington DC bidding process that always produces great and cheap results on time? The great fantastic bidding process that makes sure no mistakes or setbacks are ever had? Yeah Washington DC works so well why doesn’t Trump follow the Washington DC process? If only we’d spent more money having more meetings everything would have turned out ok. Trump must be too incompetent to hire a contractor.
TLP had this great distinction about omnipotence vs omniscience. The man who chases omnipotence is out in the world acting. The man who chases omniscience sits in the corner watching smugly with the attitude that his “understanding” is actually superior. Trump didn’t follow the rules, which proves he’s incompetent. Because I know what the rules are, which I read in a newspaper just now, I’m actually more competent than Trump.
So here’s something like a flow chart prediction of what will happen next:
Trump will hire contractors to fix the Pool again. If the first contractors are found to be at fault, the Federal Government will win back money, and liberals will say this proves Trump is incompetent. If the first contractors are not found to be at fault, liberals will say that Trump is lying and so he must be incompetent.
Once the pool is fixed, if it stays fixed, we will all basically move on forever. Liberals will never give credit for fixing the Pool, because the first time he fixed it it didn’t work.
If the pool is fixed and gets broken again, this is double proof that Trump is incompetent. In no way would this ever possibly suggest that anybody is trying to break it. If that were possibly true, Trump should be able to indict the vandals in a city that sides 95-5 with the vandals.
Because, at the end of the day, the people cheering for algae and homeless shelters in front of the churches, who will actively sabotage every attempt to clean anything up, will then deny that there could possibly have been any sabotage. The people who won’t build anything will explain why you can’t build anything. Well, actually, we can build anything, we just choose not to, we have to go through all this environmental review, contract bidding, community impact, it’s really complicated.
I’m dreaming of the anti-Trump future. Every town in America has a building permit for high-speed rail from California, and a grocery store run from New York. The fountains are all turned off so we can save money to fight climate change. Elon Musk’s wealth is confiscated so we can give it to someone who knows how to build things, like Barack Obama. And the Reflecting Pool is given over to the algae, in honor of the Piscataway, Pamunkey, Nentego-Nanichoke, and Nanticoke-Lenape tribes, whose land this originally was.
Clearly virgina does like them if virginia is inviting them to stay
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I don't see the contradiction. These people aren't cheering for the decay of the pool because they have a fetish for badly-maintained pools; they are cheering to make fun of Trump's incompetence. Now without a doubt, they enjoy having reasons to dunk on Trump so much that they "want" him to fail so they can keep on jeering. That's not a great attitude. But bringing up incompetence isn't an inexplicable last-minute about-face, it's been the point from the start. ‘Har-har, look at Ozymandias up there, the great public works he's so stupidly proud of are falling apart before our eyes, the Emperor has no clothes.’
This is just the nice rationalization they like to tell themselves. They’re not actively cheering for the pool to fail, see, they just want Trump to fail, and also want to make it likelier for Trump to fail, and they don’t especially want to fix the pool themselves, well, they would, but it’s complicated, it has to be done right, the contract process alone is very complicated… There’s always another reason why doing things is incompetent and sitting in the corner watching is wise. And the great thing about reasons is that there’s an infinite number of them.
This is why I bring up the TLP omnipotence/omniscience fantasy. They don’t want to fix the pool, they want to be right!
I'm not saying they don't want the pool to fail; I'm saying they want the pool to fail because its failure could be held up as evidence of Trump's incompetence. Why else would they care? (I agree they wouldn't particularly care to fix it if it were up to them and there was no political dimension to it at all; but I don't think we'd be seeing the same jeering enthusiasm for watching it falling apart.)
Yeah, that's the rationalization. They don't want the pool to fail as such, they want the pool to fail because of Trump. But then, next time, it will be because of Vance or *because of Rubio. And then when they're in charge of fixing the pool, there will be all sorts of other reasons why it can't be built: environmental review, DEI impact, it's not a good use of money when there are starving children in Africa, etc. etc. etc. There will always be some reason why, when they literally cheer for the algae, it's not literally cheering for the algae as such, it's knowingly self-ironic in the context of hoping Trump fails to clean the algae. And you're stupid if you don't understand the distinction. But the distinction is invented. The point is never about fixing the pool, the point is for them to be right.
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It seems like a "only Nixon could go to China" situation. Washington D.C. doesn't have any voting representation in congress so it doesn't have anyone to fight for it when it comes to budgeting, it has the 4th highest National Parks deferred maintenance backlog of any state even though it doesn't really have a major national park. If Obama had decided to use money from Yellowstone admission fees to get the fountains in D.C.'s Malcom X Park running again that would easily slot into narratives about Washington politicians plundering the country for the benefit of big city liberals. But Trump has a genuine passion for monumental architecture and infinite credibility with the Republican base so it doesn't cost him political capital to do this stuff in a way it would most other presidents.
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I suspect Trump has it backwards. There likely was some damage caused by vandals, but the majority of the problem was caused by it being a rush job. Note that nothing Pirro said disputes the earlier evidence against Hearn; he was accused of pulling on the liner with his hands, the claims of knife cuts were earlier. Of course once you know there were significant defects, the case becomes muddy; chance of proving beyond reasonable doubt that vandals did a particular bit of damage, especially with their bare hands, is very low and the dismissal is appropriate.
I think in order to do real damage with your bare hands it has to be at least a bit fucked up already. Interesting that they don't seem to have attempted to bring charges against the other people who were apparently apprehended by the park service, but this guy seems to have really tried to get it - pulled up a lot more than either of the two women and then started beefing with the cops.
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I think it's bs. The vandal did some damage, and whether it's over or under $1000, that's a question for the jury to decide.
Broken windows and all, but just because some structure is already damaged or fucked up doesn't excuse vandals from doing more damage to it.
You mean "whether David Hearn is a vandal guilty of damages more than a $1000, that's a question for the jury". Just as much as the worst possible case against Hearn can be waged, the best most charitable interpretation of Hearn's actions can be offered. And if we follow that broken window analogy, to me it was the Trump administration that led to the broken window in the first place, seems like that is more worthy of investigation and prosecution.
Anyway, Pirro made the mistake of backing down and admitting defeat. Trump would never.
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