Trump’s Reflecting Pool prank is no longer just a laughing matter

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 laughingstock: missed deadlines, unbidden contracts, algae blooms and peeling paint. The symbolism of Trump creating a veritable swamp was almost too perfect.

But over the weekend, this wacky story took a more serious turn. As Trump blamed the “vandalism” on “radical left lunatics,” the Washington Post reported that “five people were arrested and charged with vandalism, according to an administration official.” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro told Fox News that “anyone who is able to vandalize or attempt to vandalize the pool will face the Washington criminal justice system.”

The rush to tout the charges is reminiscent of other flimsy cases previously brought by Pirro’s office.

Until recent days, the botched renovation sounded like a common Trump narrative: Hubris and corruption combine to leave things worse than they started. Today, it’s another typical story of the Trump era: the abuse of the state’s prosecutorial power.

The circumstances under which most of these arrests took place remain unclear. But one of those arrested, David Hearn, denies the accusations. He told the Washington Post that he simply 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 any evidence of vandalism (not to mention the numerous videos showing paint peeling off on its own).

The rush to tout the charges is reminiscent of other flimsy cases previously brought by Pirro’s office. Last summer, for example, the Justice Department tried three times to charge Sidney Reid with criminal assault against a federal agent during an anti-immigration protest. Three times, grand juries declined to indict — “a sign that things are going completely off the rails,” as my colleague Jordan Rubin wrote at the time. Pirro’s office later charged Reid with a misdemeanor, but a jury acquitted her. Around the same time, a grand jury declined to indict Sean Dunn for throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent. Once again, Pirro’s office charged him with a misdemeanor and once again, a jury acquitted him.

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However, past acquittals are likely to be little comfort to those arrested, who will have to spend time and money confronting an administration that wants to send them to prison. “The government’s unjust prosecution of me crippled my life for three months,” Reid wrote for MS NOW after his 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.

James Downie

James Downie is an opinion editor for MS NOW Daily.

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