Exactly two months ago, President Donald Trump proudly announced the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. “You’re going to end up with a beautiful, beautiful reflecting pool, the way it’s supposed to be,” he told reporters gathered in the Oval Office. Instead, the project quickly became a laughing stock: missed deadlines, no-bid contracts, algae outbreaks and peeling paint. The symbolism of Trump creating a real-life swamp was almost too perfect.
Over the weekend, however, this farcical story took a more serious turn. As Trump blamed “vandalism” by “radical left lunatics,” The Washington Post reported that “five people had been arrested and accused of vandalism, according to an administration official.” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro told Fox News that “anyone who is in a position of vandalizing or attempting to vandalize the pool will face the criminal justice system in D.C.”
The rush to tout the charges recalls other flimsy cases previously brought by Pirro’s office.
Until the past few days, the botched renovation resembled a common Trump narrative: hubris and corruption combining to leave things worse than when he started. Now, it is another story typical of the Trump era: the abuse of state prosecutorial power.
The circumstances under which most of these arrests took place remains unclear. But one of the people arrested, David Hearn, denies the charges. He told The Washington Post that he merely put his hand in the water and touched a piece of the pool liner that was already peeling. And neither Trump nor his administration has provided evidence of vandalism (never mind the many videos of paint that peeled all by itself).
The rush to tout the charges recalls other flimsy cases previously brought by Pirro’s office. Last summer, for instance, the Department of Justice tried three times to charge Sidney Reid with felony assault of a federal officer at an immigration protest. Three times, grand juries refused to indict — “a sign that things are fully off the rails,” as my colleague Jordan Rubin wrote at the time. Pirro’s office then charged Reid with a misdemeanor, but a jury acquitted her. Around the same time, a grand jury refused to indict Sean Dunn for throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent. Again, Pirro’s office charged him with a misdemeanor and again, a jury acquitted.
Previous acquittals, however, likely will be cold comfort to those arrested, who will have to spend time and money facing down an administration that wants to send them to prison. “The government’s unfair prosecution of me caused my life to be at a standstill for three months,” Reid wrote for MS NOW after her acquittal. “I stopped unpacking my apartment and closed myself off from everything.” Even when the result is an acquittal, the arrest itself sends a message.
And Trump’s DOJ is sending even more chilling messages elsewhere.
Last fall, the federal government brought felony charges against six demonstrators at the Broadview immigration detention center outside Chicago. It recently indicted 15 members of Direct Action Minnesota for “conspiring to impede or injure federal officers” during Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s surge in Minneapolis earlier this year.
If Democrats retake one or both houses of Congress this fall, they should conduct wide-ranging oversight to shine as much light on these abuses as possible.
The president’s political foes have been targeted as well: The Justice Department indicted former FBI director Jim Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Amid the clashes in Minnesota, the Justice Department issued subpoenas for records from state and local officials, including Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, as part of an investigation into whether they obstructed law enforcement.
As with the D.C. cases, the Trump administration’s batting average in these cases is poor. Both the Comey and James indictments were tossed, and grand juries declined to reindict either. On Monday, a federal judge quashed the subpoenas of Walz and others. “Initiating a criminal investigation in order to harass political opponents or to coerce them into taking official action … is a blatantly unlawful and unethical use the grand-jury process,” wrote U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz. Charges in the Broadview case were dismissed in May. But the Minneapolis case is just starting, and as Broadview protester Kat Abughazaleh wrote, “we must remember the process is the punishment.”
Trump’s desperate attempts to blame his failed renovation on “vandals” deserve nothing but mockery and scorn. But the arrests show how deeply he and his flunkies have corrupted the Justice Department, siccing prosecutors on citizens to support the president’s pettiest deceptions. If Democrats retake one or both houses of Congress this fall, they should conduct wide-ranging oversight to shine as much light on these abuses as possible. The next Democratic president should direct the Justice Department to rebuild and strengthen its internal checks against misconduct. And a Democratic president should work with Congress, the courts and bar associations to hold to account those who have abused the DOJ’s tremendous power.
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