Jeanine Pirro has filed to drop felony vandalism charges against David Hearn. She says that the Dept. of the Interior withheld information from Justice until after the charges had been filed. However, she goes farther, saying that not only is Hearn not guilty, but that there was no vandalism and the failures in the Reflecting Pool lining were due to botched installation – thus throwing Trump under the bus as well.
It’s welcome news, but I find it baffling. Why would she do that? It’s possible that she just realized it was the right thing to do. Yeah, I don’t believe that at all. The best I can come up with is that she saw the case unravelling and wanted to spin blame onto someone else. It still seems a tactical error. Trump doesn’t have a great history with his female appointees who make him look bad.
IANAL but I think in order to file the charges, someone has to swear or attest that they believe the truth of the charges against David Hearn. Neither she nor anyone else in the DOJ was willing to do so even though Trump himself was willing to make all sorts of bullshit accusations. They talked about the dropping of the charges on NPR yesterday afternoon and someone pointed out that the Trump administration almost always tells the truth in legal filings.
What I found odd is that she spun (at last some of) that blame onto Trump and his rush job on the pool. I’m guessing she’ll be out of a job in the next week or two.
And this quote from really shows how his brain works “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? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM”.
He wants someone thrown in jail because, to him, it was vandalism. It doesn’t matter what the facts say, it just matters what he think about something. Everything he says, he fully expects to be true because he says it. Unfortunately, all his underlings make that happen often enough that I don’t think he even understands how much he gets away with.
I’ve posted this elsewhere, but will post it again here, both because I think it’s OT for P&E and because I’m not sure there IS anything more relevant (and important to understand about Trump):
Trump didn’t like her dropping the charges, saying, “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? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM, that included the grass, which had a big 86 47 emblazoned in giant letters on it, and other elements of the surrounding area. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS! President DJT” Of course he wasn’t the one signing a legal document making those claims.
Yep. And he’s not the one risking—well, anything, given the fact that Roberts’ Court has his back. Meanwhile Pirro and everyone working for her would be risking disbarment at the very least, if they swear or attest that they believe the charges are true.
Well, it was vandalism, or at least the ‘motorcade driving over the just-laid surface’ could be argued to be such. (Obviously nothing David Hearn did could reasonably be argued to have been vandalism.)
It’s also obvious to most that the no-bid contract was fulfilled by a company that either didn’t know what it was doing, or didn’t care. And there’s no one to blame for that but Donald himself.
Altogether a Friday night news dump was probably inevitable for this story. And only Donald’s core 20% or so (the percentage of Americans who are dedicated white supremacists) will think there’s any merit to his whining about the case being dropped.
Trump originally promised that the work on the reflecting pool would cost $1.8 million but then the cost increased for some reason to $13.1 million, for a no-bid contract. And now the administration admits that it was a shoddy job.
If the Interior information was so important, that they would ask for it dozens and dozens or times, was there an obligation to wait for it before asking the Grand Jury to indict? (This is a real question – I have no idea what the answer is.)
As for disbarment, is this a real risk under the Trump administration? Would the D.C. Bar really do this?
Or is Pirro more realistically afraid of what could happen post-Trump?
Rule 7 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides a list of minimum information that an indictment must contain and that follows for most states:
“Plain, concise, and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged.”
Suspect’s identity. Unless the suspect identity is unknown (see Rule 7 (c)(1)).
“For purposes of an indictment referred to in section 3282 of title 18, United States Code, for which the identity of the defendant is unknown, it shall be sufficient for the indictment to describe the defendant as an individual whose name is unknown, but who has a particular DNA profile, as that term is defined in section 3282.”
Citation of the statute or regulation that was allegedly violated.
Signature from a government attorney.
That last bit, that a government attorney is required to sign the indictment, is the one that I think exposes someone to penalties if the charges are bullshit.
And now Burgum (sec interior) and Pirro are engaged in a cat fight over who fucked this whole thing up. And Trump is doubling down on accusing innocent people of being vandals/terrorists.
I’d like to see a cage match on the Whitehouse lawn featuring Burgum and Pirro. “Match of the Century folks! Two douchbags enter! Nobody leaves!”
I may be misunderstanding your question but yes, disbarment could be a real thing. Trump doesn’t figure into it since he has no control over any of the bar associations, including those in DC. Both Giuliani and John Eastman have been disbarred for BS they pulled in 2020. Pretty sure some of the other lawyers have faced sanctions or some type of discipline.
It will be interesting. Anyone with at least 10% of a functioning brain and not infested by dementia and not pathologically vindictive would just let it go. Will the Orange Peril let it go? Let’s wait and find out!
Trump, or Pirro, or whoever, have been saying all along that they are charging 6 or 7 others of vandalism too and have arrested 2 or 3 of them. But I haven’t seen or heard a word of their names or any other details.
Are all those charges being dropped too? Did they ever exist to begin with?