The Trump administration has dropped its criminal case against former Olympic canoeist David "Davey" Hearn, a two-time Olympian in whitewater slalom who competed at the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Games, who had been charged in connection with damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, after the Justice Department conceded that its allegations "don't hold water." NBC News reported on the dismissal late Friday.

In a 20-page court filing submitted Friday afternoon, a supervisor in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia — which is headed by Jeanine Pirro — wrote that officials had obtained information that undermined "the evidentiary basis for the indictment" against Hearn. The concession is notable because grand jury indictments require prosecutors to establish probable cause, and post-indictment dismissals are relatively uncommon, particularly when the underlying evidence was sourced from another federal agency.

According to NBC News, prosecutors said that after the indictment was handed down, the Interior Department "provided additional documents to the USAO-DC indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings."

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is managed by the National Park Service, a bureau of the Department of the Interior. It is one of the most iconic landmarks in the nation's capital, situated between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.

The Justice Department's filing stated that, based on its review of the evidence, "it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt."

One reporter described the filing as throwing "the Trump Admin's Dept of Interior under the bus."

Critics on social media were quick to respond.

"Where does Dave Hearn (smeared as a vandal) go to get his reputation back?" wrote Vanity Fair writer Paul Farhi on X.

"There it is ... the Reflecting Pool accusations were just Trump lies," one user posted on X.

Another wrote: "Defense should move to sanction the DOJ attorneys who brought this case. Prosecutorial misconduct and an abuse of the grand jury process."

"lol...the gang that can't shoot straight losing another one," added another critic on X.

Another post on X highlighted the filing's implications.

NBC News reported that a spokesperson for Pirro said the filing "spoke for itself." Pirro's office also moved to dismiss at least one of the other three misdemeanor cases that had been brought in connection with the Reflecting Pool, though the status of the remaining cases was not immediately clear.