President Donald Trump on Monday sharply criticized U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for withdrawing a prosecution tied to alleged vandalism at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, saying she failed to press the case and suggesting she succumbed to pressure.
Trump told reporters he believed Pirro "choked" under scrutiny from a judge and "folded like an umbrella." He said he was "really disappointed" in her decision and questioned why the matter was not pursued further.
In a court filing dated Friday, Pirro's office said the damage to the newly renovated pool was the result of shoddy construction rather than deliberate vandalism and moved to drop charges against former Olympian David Hearn. Hearn had been accused of intentionally harming the reflecting pool in the lead-up to the nation’s 250th birthday celebration last month.
Trump pushed back on that explanation, saying surveillance footage showed people cutting newly installed waterproofing material around the pool and arguing that Pirro, whom he described as a close political ally, should have continued with the prosecution.
"Pirro made a mistake. It was vandalism," Trump said, repeating his view that the action was deliberate. He also said, "I don’t know what the hell happened," reflecting uncertainty about the decision-making that led to the case being dropped.
Jeanine Pirro is the chief federal prosecutor in Washington and a former Fox News host and longtime ally of Trump. The article of record notes that Trump did not say whether he had spoken with her directly before making his criticism public. When asked whether he was reconsidering her role, he did not provide an answer.
The sequence of events underlines a dispute between the executive branch's public statements and a prosecutor's legal assessment filed in court. Pirro's office attributed the pool's damage to construction defects in its filing, while the president cited what he called visual evidence of deliberate tampering.
The matter has generated public attention because it involves a prominent public space, a high-profile defendant in David Hearn, and a conflict between a sitting president's public comments and a top federal prosecutor's legal determination.