Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 01-Aug-2026 11:52:13 JST Heidi Li Feldman

   The U.S. Attorney for DC, Jeanine Pirro, has had to dismiss its indictment of Davey Hearn, the Olympian the Trump regime accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool. The motion to dismiss is something else. 1/ https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/28528042/260731-hearn.pdf #LawFedi

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 01-Aug-2026 11:52:11 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • fulanigirl

     @fulanigirl @heidilifeldman

     It is indeed transparently ludicrous, and raises the question of why even trot out this pathetic fig leaf at all. My leading theories are:

     (1) They realized DOI / Parks had already stated internally that the damage was due to the botched remodel, those internal statement were going to come out during discovery or at trial or something, and Piro's statement is thus a sort fun house mirror version of the truth: “We only later learned after filing that we were about to be caught lying”

     (2) Trump's attention wandered away long enough for them to pull the plug without triggering him

   • Embed this notice
     Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 01-Aug-2026 11:52:12 JST Heidi Li Feldman

     in reply to

     Pirro basically arguing that her office was at the mercy of incomplete information provided by the U.S. Park Service, so the prosecutors could not have known@when they indicted Hearn that the entirely lining job was mishandled and that this, not vandalism, was the cause of peeling liner. 2/

     Paul Cantrell and Steve's Place repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     fulanigirl (fulanigirl@mstdn.social)'s status on Saturday, 01-Aug-2026 11:52:12 JST fulanigirl

     in reply to

     @heidilifeldman I find this ludicrous. Local news covered the liner fiasco before Hearn touched the pool. In last week's local reporting they stated that one witness in the grand jury specifically said the pool liner was already damaged and they couldn't say for a fact that Hearn made it worse. That's why his lawyers wanted the judge to look at the grand jury transcripts.

   • Embed this notice
     Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 01-Aug-2026 11:53:03 JST Heidi Li Feldman

     in reply to

     There is so much that is absurd about this. But it is a serious kind of absurdity because the incompetence of the prosecutors — who were under no obligation to indict Hearn and could, like any of the rest of us, know that the problem with the liner was that it was obviously a botched job — brought the full force of federal criminal justice system to bear on a pretty clearly innocent person. 3/

   • Embed this notice
     Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 01-Aug-2026 12:27:04 JST Heidi Li Feldman

     in reply to

     Here’s DoJ’s official conclusion as to the cause of the peeling liner at the Reflecting Pool: “hasty and botched work”. (Worth reading entire paragraph in pic.) 5/5

     Steve's Place repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Return of Aadmaa (aadmaa2@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Saturday, 01-Aug-2026 12:27:04 JST Return of Aadmaa

     in reply to

     @heidilifeldman One might reasonably wonder what sort of restitution Hearn should anticipate from the $1.8bn restitution fund for individuals who have been "wrongly investigated or prosecuted"

   • Embed this notice
     Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 01-Aug-2026 12:27:05 JST Heidi Li Feldman

     in reply to

     The Trump regime’s motion to dismiss attempts to throw the Department of the Interior (home of the U.S. Park Service) under the bus. One representative paragraph in pic. 4/

   • Embed this notice
     huntingdon (huntingdon@mstdn.social)'s status on Saturday, 01-Aug-2026 12:27:23 JST huntingdon

     in reply to

     @heidilifeldman

     That sort of assessment of a contractor's work, here on the work done for the Reflecting Pool, usually results in a demand for all the state's money back, and blackballing of a vendor from new USG contracts.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 02-Aug-2026 01:09:07 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • fulanigirl

     @fulanigirl @heidilifeldman
     I certainly like the idea that Piro or anyone in this admin is afraid of experiencing personal consequences for their actions.

   • Embed this notice
     fulanigirl (fulanigirl@mstdn.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Aug-2026 01:09:09 JST fulanigirl

     in reply to

     • Paul Cantrell

     @inthehands @heidilifeldman Agreed and add in they wanted to avoid the judge looking at those grand jury instructions and referirrng her to the DC Bar ethics committee. In local news coverage earlier there was a suggestion that during the rehab, before the water was added, they drove Trump through the pool area and the tires damaged the liner. How funny would that be if true.