DOJ admits reflecting pool renovation was flawed, drops charges

[0:00] moments ago the justice department moved to drop the criminal charges against the former olympian [0:06] accused of vandalizing the reflecting pool on the national mall prosecutors admitted the 14 million [0:12] dollar installation was rushed and flawed joining us now with cnn's caitlin polance and cnn senior [0:19] legal analyst ellie honek caitlin let's start with you this is a big admission by the justice [0:24] department a big admission on two fronts pam one is that they are now saying that this pool liner it [0:33] was damaged because it was installed incorrectly and the reason it was installed incorrectly was [0:39] because the trump administration was rushing for a pool liner to be placed on the bottom of the [0:45] reflecting pool as they were awaiting the july 4th 250th celebration on the national mall they wanted [0:53] to be done in time and so it was rushed the installation was bad and there was damage [0:57] throughout that liner that the trump administration had on the bottom of the reflecting pool the second [1:03] admission that they're making now that was already quite a big change in posture by the administration [1:09] to admit that their installation was wrong the second thing they're doing is they are dropping [1:14] a criminal case a felony charge against david hearn the former olympic canoeist he lives up in maryland [1:22] very close to washington dc and he had visited the national mall there were witnesses the justice [1:28] department brought into the grand jury who were park police employees of the federal government who had [1:35] said that they witnessed her tearing at that reflecting pool he had been charged with a felony because they [1:41] said the damage was so significant it amounted to more than a thousand dollars that he caused now they're [1:48] entirely reversing that and saying that after the reflecting pool was drained in recent days [1:56] the justice department went back to look at it they've already indicted hearn they already have [2:01] alleged that he was the person causing this he was a vandal but then they went back to look at exactly [2:07] what was the bottom of that pool looked like after there was water drained from it after the july 4th [2:13] celebration and pierrot's office determined it looked like there was damage throughout they didn't [2:19] realize how extensive it was and the department of interior then backed them up with some more [2:23] information saying the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism not davy [2:31] hearn's fault we got a statement from hearn's attorney norm eisen just a few minutes ago he says the trump [2:38] administration's case against davy hearn should never have been brought its dismissal today does [2:43] not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic american who did nothing [2:49] wrong the government's approach was ready aim fire and the administration owes him an apology pamela [2:57] ali honig what do you make of this development well pam i think you could see the problems with this case [3:03] right away i wrote a piece for new york magazine i said on air that there were some reasons to doubt the [3:08] validity of this case i did not expect it to unravel so quickly it's a real embarrassment first of all [3:13] for the united states justice department let's remember first they arrest david hearn they charge him [3:18] initially by complaint with a misdemeanor then they upgrade it to a felony they get a grand jury to [3:24] indict him for that felony and then jeannie pierrot holds a press conference where she's pounding the [3:29] podium and talking about what a serious crime this is and how justice will be done and now it turns out [3:35] they dismissed the case voluntarily and what doj is saying in the statement that we've received is [3:40] that well we didn't get the full information about the state of the pool from the interior department [3:44] until after we charge but that's no excuse at all it's your job as a prosecutor to get the relevant [3:50] information first you don't charge first and then figure it out you get the information first and then [3:55] charge so it's a true embarrassment for jeannie pierrot's a true embarrassment for doj and they brought it [4:00] on themselves so explain more about why it matters if the pool was already damaged or not because um [4:07] the case was made before that you know he reached in and pulled it up and everything [4:12] what is the relevance of the fact that now they're saying well this wasn't the only area where it was [4:18] damaged and so therefore we're going to drop these charges so the actual felony charge that doj [4:24] brought here requires prosecutors to show that the defendant caused over a thousand dollars worth of [4:30] damage one of the points that the defense had made is if this liner was already destroyed then it's [4:36] worthless then you can't cause a thousand dollars worth of damage to make a rough analogy if you [4:41] already have a window that's already broken and then someone throws a rock through it he hasn't [4:45] damaged it anymore because it's already useless so this actually doesn't even get to the point of [4:50] whether david hearn reached into the pool and ripped something up or not regardless either way [4:55] they're not going to be able to show that he caused a thousand dollars of damage even if he did rip it [5:00] up because now according to the government's own admissions the pool was already destroyed the liner [5:05] the pool was already destroyed and it doesn't really matter whether he reached in there and ripped it or [5:09] reached in there and just touched it or did nothing at all if you can't show the thousand dollars you [5:13] can't make your felony charge but couldn't you just go and see that it was already an issue that [5:19] it was already destroyed like you don't even i mean i don't know i had been down there it didn't look so [5:24] great a halfway decent investigation would have done just that pam there obviously was a mad rush to [5:32] do this case genie pirro obviously oversold it dramatically at that press conference and this is the [5:39] consequence of that caitlin what else are you learning from the court documents you know pamela [5:43] one of the things that's happening in these court documents is there is a recitation from the u.s [5:47] attorney's office janine pirro the u.s attorney the justice department in dc where they are pointing [5:53] fingers at a host of other people in the government including the government contractors that [5:59] completed this work and also the department of interior and others where her office is essentially [6:06] saying they just didn't realize the extent of the damage and they didn't have documents until after [6:13] they were looking at this and building this case against david herm they actually say that they [6:19] received documents about the installation of this reflecting pool from the department of interior [6:25] only a couple days ago after july 17th when they went back to interior now that's maybe two weeks [6:31] after hearn was indicted they clearly didn't have a full record at the time they indicted him and they [6:37] then walk through all of the ways that they learned that people were realizing there were issues with this [6:44] reflecting pool liner as it was being installed throughout the month of may one of the notes [6:50] here was that some of this was noticed by a quality control inspector in late may who saw blistering [6:58] in finished portions of the liner and said that they needed repairs at that time that was well before [7:04] davy hearn and others ever got to the mall to take a look at that liner coming up they also [7:10] are pointing the justice department is pointing to other stuff that was happening in washington for [7:17] the 250th celebration including at one point in this filing she's writing or her team is writing of [7:25] prosecutors saying that some of the equipment and the crews that were working on the reflecting pool [7:31] they had to be moved over to the white house grounds because of the ufc fight that donald trump was [7:37] hosting there i don't know if i've ever seen an autopsy of what was happening between branches of [7:45] the government like this in a filing just putting it out there but it is a filing where the justice [7:52] department once they got this sort of information would have needed to come clean because the evidence [7:57] just wasn't there to prosecute davy hearn for a felony vandalism and ellie you noted this that u.s [8:04] attorney janine pierrot came out strong when announcing the charges earlier this month with [8:08] that press conference i want to play a little bit of what she said there was an effort a violent effort [8:18] to rip up the sealant from the bottom of the pool we can state and prove beyond a reasonable doubt [8:24] that he caused damage and that damage is over a thousand dollars with an expert come to the trial [8:34] uh right now we believe it's his bare hands both hands oh he damaged it he damaged the pool he damaged [8:53] this pool well good i'm glad you've got that evans come on in the grand jury you can testify next ellie [9:02] what's your reaction okay this is how not to prosecute 101 first of all do not hold a press conference [9:10] for a nothing little case second of all do not overstate your evidence and third of all to the point [9:15] that caitlin just made do your work first do your investigation first it's ridiculous now that the [9:22] u.s attorney's office is saying well it's interior's fault well it's this person's fault where it's that [9:25] fault we didn't know this they didn't tell us that that's your job as a prosecutor you don't charge [9:31] a person with a felony which could have locked him up the max here would have been 10 years had he [9:36] been convicted you don't charge a person with a felony until you know what you're talking about [9:41] and if jeannie piero thinks that it's somehow taking blame off her office to say well there's [9:45] all these other things out there that we weren't told she's wrong she's actually putting the blame [9:49] on herself because they didn't know this stuff they didn't figure out before they indicted that's how [9:54] how they should have done it