The effort to prosecute former Olympic canoeist David Hearn for damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has hit a snag. Judge Todd E. Edelman noted that the government is “operating at its own peril” if it alters the Reflecting Pool before the defense attorneys’ expert has the opportunity to sample the lining. Hearn’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case on Thursday, arguing that the government had not preserved the section of pool liner that Hearn stands accused of slashing.

“Despite the importance of the pool liner to the case, in the brief period since June 19, 2026, the same government that presented and returned the indictment against Mr. Hearn has fenced off the scene, begun draining the pool yet again, and publicly announced its intention to repair the very liner whose condition is at issue,” the motion to dismiss reads.

The case against Hearn already stretches credulity, with President Trump accusing “vandals” of acting to damage the pool after he had contracted a friend to re-line it in the lead-up to America’s 250th celebrations. Though the more conspiracy-minded of us might note that one of Hearn’s lead attorneys is Norman Eisen, the CNN legal analyst who co-runs The Contrarian Substack with NeverTrumper Jennifer Rubin.

Eisen has found himself accused of fomenting a “color revolution” against Trump through his work at the Brookings Institution by a number of leading voices in the MAGAsphere. In 2020 Revolver News branded him “a key architect of nearly every attempt to delegitimize, impeach, censor, sue, and remove the democratically elected 45th President of the United States.” Not that he has an ax to grind, of course.

It’s a disgrace that Ed Miliband is Foreign Secretary

Andy Burnham is comically out of touch

Meet the new........

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