Inset left: Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn listens as his attorney Norman Eisen speaks after he pleaded not guilty to allegedly damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Thursday, July 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.). Inset right: U.S. D.C. Attorney Jeanine Pirro at a press conference at the Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C., on Friday, February 6, 2026. (Photo by Annabelle Gordon/Sipa USA). Background: The Lincoln Memorial and drained Reflecting Pool as seen from the Washington Monument on July 20, 2026 in Washington, DC (Photo by Emily Alff/Sipa USA).
Fresh off the Trump administration's failure to sustain the "meritless" prosecution against the former Olympic canoeist falsely accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the erstwhile defendant in that case is now asking for an internal government watchdog investigation into U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
In the underlying case, the Department of Justice ultimately stood down but asked for the opportunity to file charges against David Hearn again sometime in the future. In the order dismissing the case with prejudice, the judge noted that "no crime had occurred" and that the government itself, within a month of filing charges, "recognized that its prosecution lacked merit."
Now, in an open letter, Hearn's attorneys are asking both the inspectors general for the DOJ and the Department of the Interior to find out how it all went wrong — and what role Pirro played in "the nightmare" that resulted from "the incompetence and wrongdoing" of employees within both the DOJ and the Interior Department.
"From June 19 to the present, misconduct has been committed by personnel in both agencies," the letter reads. "Because of the actions of various DOJ and DOI employees, Mr. Hearn was deprived of his liberty, indicted for a crime he did not commit, threatened with incarceration of up to 10 years, and endured the defaming of his name and reputation by high-ranking government officials."
Among those officials is Pirro, the letter states.
Hearn's attorneys allege Pirro, a former Fox News host, acted with "unusual haste" and initiated a prosecution "shaped from the outset by political pressure and built on an inadequate investigation."
The letter claims those inadequacies were intentionally papered over by Pirro and her staff to appease Donald Trump.
"At a minimum, by their own admission, the prosecutors knew that the record was incomplete and apparently knew that [the Interior Department] possessed exculpatory material, yet proceeded to the grand jury anyway," the open letter continues. "However, the record reflects that the USAO-DC in fact was in possession of the necessary exculpatory evidence and simply ignored it."
Hearn's attorneys also accuse Pirro herself of engaging in one particularly egregious instance of misconduct involving an expert witness hired by the defense to inspect the memorial pool.
"Accompanied by a group of armed government agents who positioned themselves around defense counsel's expert, the U.S. Attorney personally approached the expert while he was conducting his inspection and questioned him about his conclusions, the results of his work, and why he was present," the letter goes on.
The request elaborates on Pirro's alleged wrongdoing:
Even after the defense's expert advised the U.S. Attorney that he could not speak to her about the matter—and members of her own staff cautioned her not to ask him such questions—the U.S. Attorney repeatedly pressured the defense expert to provide her with information. Defense counsel was given no notice that the encounter would take place and was not present for it, and the government has never produced any report, note, or record of the exchange.
That behavior is evidence of misconduct "committed at the highest levels" of the U.S. Attorney's Office, the letter says.
"A U.S. Attorney who personally interrogates a represented defendant's testifying expert, surrounded by her own staff and without notice to counsel, is not gathering evidence—she is testing how the defense intends to prove its case, and doing so in a setting that essentially held the expert captive," the letter continues.
To that end, Hearn's attorneys want the offices of the inspectors general (OIG) to determine who was at this encounter, what Pirro said, and whether the U.S. Attorney's Office "considered the propriety of it before or after the fact."
The letter also criticizes Pirro for a series of public statements made about Hearn in which she described the alleged conduct as "anarchy" and "criminal behavior."
Seeking a broad mandate for the watchdogs, Hearn's attorneys want investigations into both the planning and implementation of the renovation project itself as well as the investigation, arrest and prosecution.
"The DOJ OIG and the DOI OIG must conduct detailed and comprehensive investigations to determine what happened inside their agencies that led to the shocking and indefensible treatment of Mr. Hearn," the letter reads at one point. "DOJ OIG and DOI OIG each have distinct but complementary responsibilities to determine what occurred within their respective departments; whether applicable laws, policies, and professional ethics were followed; and the specific instances of incompetence and misconduct engaged in by government personnel."