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The Government’s Sole Witness Just Sank the Reflecting Pool Case (w/ Ryan Reilly)
00:19:23
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This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace.
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Last year, I went through many different life changes. I needed to take a pause and examine how I was feeling in the inside to better show up for the ones who need me to be my best version of myself.
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C
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Hey everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, managing out at the Bork, and I'm here, my old buddy Ryan Reilly, now of NBC. We worked together way back in the day and Ryan's been covering the reflecting pool case, which you may not know is actually happening right now in the D.C. superior Court. For those who may have forgotten about the reflecting pool, Trump redid it. It fell apart. And then he got really mad that it fell apart and he said that there was vandalism there. And they brought a charge against this ex Olympian, David Hearn, saying that he deliberately v. The pool. The case is not going particularly great for a variety of reasons, but Ryan, who has been covering it, can explain it. Ryan, why is the case not going great?
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C
Yeah, so initially there's this out of the gate declaration that the key witness that they brought before the grand jury to talk about damages, meaning you know how much this actual incident actually cost, couldn't actually put a dollar figure on what he is alleged to have done. And so sort of to back up here, the way the, the reason that the money, the monetary is extremely important and basically at the center of this case is because that's what gets you to the felony threshold. Right. So the only way you can charge somebody with a felony is if what damage you say they caused is more than $1,000. And the fundamental issue, broadly speaking, with the Reflecting Pool cases is that there was a bunch of damage done to the pool already and even from this account in that spot in particular. And so saying that this is costing an extra thousand dollars is really going to be like the crucial part of this case. I think it's what is going to make or break this case sort of off the bat. And from the representation of his lawyers, the grand jury's witness was not able to say if there was any actual monetary damage that was caused. And his contention, of course, is that the pool condition was exactly the same as it was when he left, as it was when he arrived, and that he had no material impact on the pool material.
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E
All right, let's step back even further. Let's just go through the story from soup to nuts. So they fill the pool, it looks great for a day or two, starts getting a little green, then the bottom starts coming up. Then people are like, is this damaged? And then Trump's like, actually there's a. People are vandalizing it. There's a huge 300 foot slit that someone caused. Whatever.
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C
Are the contractors who did the initial
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F
work with a reflecting pool, are they
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C
to blame for the current condition or is it vandalized? No, we had vandalism vandals. You know, we have 100 and we have a, I think 290, 300 foot slit right through it. Probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind.
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E
And then they make a few arrests. Right, And David Hearn is one of the people they arrested, is that right?
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C
Yeah. And I think what's also interesting about this is around the time a lot of individuals were arrested, so there's like three other misdemeanor cases is also a time when all of these out of state law enforcement officers had arrived and were basically standing around the Reflecting Pool, they had all arrived for the America 250 sort of events and were sworn in as they were deputized as U.S. marshals for the purposes of their presence there, to help out with security. And so you basically have members of the National Guard and law enforcement officers from Oklahoma and across the country who aren't normally on the streets of D.C. standing all around this pool. And in those other incidents you had, the allegation is that like little pieces of the, of the blue sealant that had already come off were being like taken. And it seems like maybe a couple people like, you know, tried to grab those as souvenirs, but you basically had people, you had law enforcement officers, like, staring down people who are like just near the pool and like watching their every move.
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E
But Hearn was one of several who they arrested, correct?
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C
Yeah, and he was one of the most high profile, I think, you know, because he, he afterwards he spoke with Olympian. He's an Olympian. Right. And also, like, I mean, you know, I think in case people don't remember the visual, right, he was in his cycling gear, he had just come off from a ride, he had had his bike with him. And so I think that also adds like another layer to this, right? Because like, it's not as though, like, that's not the best outfit to be wearing if you're going to go like vandalize something, I would say, right? Like that's.
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E
Unless you want, unless you want to do a quick, a quick getaway on
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C
your bike, get away on the bike afterwards. But yeah, I mean, you know, I don't think so. I think his outfit choice to begin with, I mean, and you know, it sort of takes away from the notion that this was like some sort of pre planned event or anything.
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E
So now the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. led by Jeanine Pirro, kind of very publicly embraced this case. And they, and I think part of it is because it obviously mattered dearly to Trump to bring these prosecutions because he had so committed to the proposition that this was not poor pool construction or a rush job, it was vandalism. And so Pierrot brings this case and she's arguing that like, this is pretty much, you know, done and dusted, like she's got this guy dead to rights. And almost instantaneously, you and others kind of point out that that's not, you know, there might be some holes here. So let's play the July 2nd exchange that you had with Pierrot on this because I think it's important. People have to understand. I just want to summarize this. They have to prove, in order to get a felony, that there was over $1,000 worth of damages done to this pool. They have to prove this. And they brought to the grand jury an accusation that they could prove that there was over a thousand dollars worth of damages done to the pool if they do not Prove that then it's not a felony. Now, they could charge him with a misdemeanor, but it's not a felony. So the question becomes to get the grand jury to indict this guy. Did they mislead the grand jury? We're going to get to that in a second. But first, your exchange with Jeanine Pirro on July 2nd.
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We can state and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he caused damage, and that damage is over $1,000.
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Keying in on that. How do you prove that thousand dollars
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with an expert come to the trial.
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It has to be drained. Like, I'm just. It's not. Because it has to be you.
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Can we get. Well, hear all that at the trial.
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Did he have any tools or was it just his bare hands?
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Right now we believe it's his bare hands. Both hands.
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So does that indicate in your belief that it was probably damaged before, or do you believe that he.
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Oh, he damaged it further.
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But do you believe it had already been damaged before?
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He damaged the pool.
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Before he touched it.
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He damaged this pool.
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But there have been, you know, all these videos.
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Well, good. I'm glad you've got that. Evans, Come on in the grand jury, you can testify.
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So they did. Did you. You couldn't go to the trial, Right. Or did you go to the.
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C
There's no trial. The trial hasn't happened yet. Right. So, you know, we're still ahead of the game, but, yeah, just a really sharp, inquisitive questioning from whoever that.
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Yeah, I'm really impressed.
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C
It's zeroing in on the core issue at play here.
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Can we just dispense with the Pulitzers or whatever it is for TV journalism and just give it to you right now? Okay. So the government's sole grand jury witness did testify.
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C
Yeah.
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But it got a little complicated. Explain.
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C
Yeah. So this is the sole witness who was testifying specifically about damages. We don't know everyone who testified there, so we don't know what we don't know here. But I think that the reason I sort of centered on that question is I sat through countless January 6th trials, and often that $1,000 felony threshold was a major component of a lot of these cases. I don't know if you remember Bullhorn woman. She was wearing a hat. She had sunglasses. Anyway, she's a mother of nine from Pennsylvania. Anyway, she was e. She is using, like, a battering ram, essentially, a giant cardboard tube to pop out this window. And she eventually pleaded guilty. But, like, actually, when they. When they pressed this case, they realized that actually that window was slightly under the thousand dollar limit. And then, you know. Yeah, so like that. So they had to bump that down to that charge down to a misdemeanor. There's another case where it was very funny during the Proud Boys trial you had the individual who smashed in the window with a shield was very insistent during his testimony that he'd only broken one plane of this window. And why was he very insistent upon that? Because exactly that like. So he smashed the whole window. Right. And it, and then there was another window that was like, I think like $40,000 that someone smashed. And you're just, I mean, you know, it's, it really mattered what window you smashed, what, you know, the cost was, etc. Etc. In the, in a lot of these cases. And that was often like a really essential part of this. So I think when, you know, when I saw this case I'm like, okay, but the pool was already damaged and so a lot of that's already sunk cost. And so I just like that's really going to be at the core of this issue. If you accept the premise that he did anything to the pool. If you accept, even if you accept the premise that he, you know, perhaps pulled something up that was already ripped up, that's not, I don't think you can, that's going to be really tough for them to show that that was a thousand dollar difference because you know, right.
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If it's already damaged. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just embarrassing. If it's already damaged, how can you prove that he caused $1,000 worth of damages?
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C
Right.
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If there's a piece flapping, as we saw, flap it in there in the water and he takes it and he, I mean the damage is already done, right? Can you say, oh, by pulling it a little bit harder, that's $1,000 worth of damages and that's really tough.
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deserve I'm going to read from the filing that Hearn's attorneys put into the Here they said the government's sole grand jury witness on damages testified that the property was already damaged before Mr. Hearn allegedly touched it, that the same repairs would have been required regardless of Mr. Hearn's conduct, and that he could not quantify any loss attributable to that conduct. The witness's testimony established that the pool had substantial pre existing damage requiring repair before any alleged conduct by Mr. Hearn. And according to witness, the pool is leaking more than 1 million gallons of water per week. Its expansion joints had exceeded their service life, and the liner already contained a rip. So to your point, Ryan, this is where Hearn's attorneys are like, hey, you, you can't say we caused a thousand dollars worth damages. It was already damaged.
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C
Right? And they say in their view, this raises questions about how the jury was instructed, which is a really core issue here because, you know, D.C. grand jurors have been really skeptical of a lot of the cases that the Trump administration has brought forward. This case was brought in Superior Court in D.C. versus district court, the federal court. But they're brought by the same prosecutors because the U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro in this case is in charge of all felony or all federal charges, as well as most cases against adults, you know, most local crimes in Superior Court. There's only a very small narrow window of types of cases that are brought forward by someone who's actually elected by voters in D.C. and so that's the U.S. attorney's office is this really powerful office. It's unique in the country. And they've been skeptical in the past. Right. That case that Donald Trump wanted brought against six sitting members of Congress over what everyone pretty much agreed was plainly protected free speech.
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E
The seditious six. Yes.
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C
Seditious six video. Yes. We, you know, reported that out, and the grand jury rejected those charges. And they've also been skeptical of. Of other cases they federal grand jury or federal D.C. grand jurors did not return an indictment against sandwich guy, for example.
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E
And so people who forget this man threw a Subway ham sandwich, I believe. Was it him? I don't know if it was him.
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C
There's some discrepancy on what was in the ho. Originally. It was. I think we landed on turkey. I think is his. Is his.
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E
Maybe that's what got him off, you know, a thousand dollars threshold if he had gone with the more expensive meat. Yeah. They did not indict him. So what happens here? So the Hearns attorneys want to get the. They want this whole thing tossed. They think that if they can get the instructions to the grand jury public or if they can get the judge to view them, that they could get this whole thing dismissed on grounds that the grand jury was misled. Is that. That's my.
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C
Exactly. Because their witness about damages did not. Would not represent that this was, you know, more than a thousand dollars that he caused.
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E
How could. How could Piro's office present this to the grand jury with that witness testimony? So, again, from this, Hearn's attorneys, when asked by a grand juror for the difference between the estimated cost of repairs before and after the alleged damage, the witness could not provide an answer. Again, this is Hearn's attorney, so maybe, you know, take it with a grain of salt, but how do you get. I guess I'm having trouble figuring this one out. Like, how do you get. How do you square this one?
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C
Yeah, I mean, I think that that's why it opens up these questions about how the jury was instructed. And that's what we don't know. That's what's still closed up. Right. Like, we don't know what prosecutors told them. And across the country in various courts, there have been instances where. And, you know, again, we don't know what happened in this particular case, to be clear, but there has been this pattern of grand juries being improperly instructed, particularly in these cases that Donald Trump has a lot of interest in. I think that another. Another one of these cases that I think we will see questions about is the James Comey Seashells photo case, because that's one where there's a lot of questions about how did this grand jury return an indictment based on this? Because just on the plain language of what's required by the statute, the facts are real tough to meet there. And so I think that's one we're going to see a lot of questions about particular maybe see behind the curtain on what the grant, how the grand jury was instructed here.
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E
I've already seen comments on this, and I, I don't know the answer to it, and it's probably getting way too ahead of where we are. But, you know, people are like, well, if this guy, David Hearn was, you know, had to go through this, he had to pay legal fees, he got his reputation maligned, like, what kind of recourse does he have? Similarly, I guess, with James Comey, though less so because I suppose Comey's more of a public figure. But, you know, like, are there penalties for bringing these flimsy prosecutions, assuming that's what's proven? Or is the basic gist here that Pirro can kind of do this because she knows this is what Trump wants and there's just no price to pay if it just goes up in flames?
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C
Yeah, I mean, prosecutors have a lot of protection from that sort of litigation. So that's definitely a high bar. And even if you were to get to that, right. You're talking about having a party in office that would necessarily, like, want to settle something like that. But I think that's like, really far down the road. I think, you know, the core issue here will be what can they actually prove that, that he did. Like, we don't really know exactly what unfolded. We don't have any details really about what unfolded. You know, on that day. He was clearly at the pool. He has a photo before he, he touches the water. Right. He's there. So, like, what actually happened? What did people see him do? Is there any video of this? And I think that, you know, those are the questions that are going to be at the core of this. What was the, that particular part of the pool before? What was the particular state of it after? And that thousand dollar. I think the felony threshold thing is clearly, if this goes to trial, if this isn't tossed before, then that's going to be something, I think based on the grand jury testimony, that seems like it's going to be at the core of this and maybe something that the government's going to struggle with representing before grand jurors that this individual act costs more than $1,000.
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E
And let me just Anticipate some of the comments here. Not that we don't love our commenters, but, you know, people, I've seen this as well. It's like, oh, who cares? This is focused on this story. It's like the Reflecting Pool is such a minor controversy relative to everything else that's going on. And I guess to a degree, I understand that there's plenty of more controversial stuff happening, including even in the Washington D.C. renovation space. Right. Like Trump's doing more expensive things and this is just, you know, a side project. And yet this isn't about the Reflecting Pool. It's about the sort of weaponization of a very influential Justice Department office to kind of pursue these vendettas and these whims that the President has. It's about the use of government resources to go after people who you may not like. It's about the degradation of our justice system. So I feel like that's kind of getting lost in this conversation because I do think there's a larger picture story here.
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C
Yeah, for sure. And I mean, like Jeanine Pirro came out and did a press conference about this incident. Right. It's not every single incident that on the scale that she's doing a presser about or even that there would be a press release about, this is something that they're trying to draw a lot of attention around. And I think that that's why, you know, as members of the media, it's very important that we sort of dive into these, the details here and see if what the government is representing and the power that they're trying to wield against an American citizen is justified. If it's based upon, if it's based on the facts and sort of looking, you know, sort of peeking behind the curtain here and seeing what their actual, what the actual facts are and how they've been representing them is really important. Important because, you know, the way that the Justice Department has been using its power is certainly a change from what we've, what we've seen in the past in this administration,
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E
to put it mildly. Okay. Ryan Riley, the NBC's chief reflecting pool correspondent, after a stint as the chief sandwich throwing correspondent.
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C
Look at him.
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E
He's so happy that LeBron James ended up in Philadelphia.
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C
It's just wonderful, isn't it?
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F
It.
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C
Phil deserves everything.
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E
Yeah. You guys are so. The karma finally coming back to you. All right, Ryan, great talking to you, buddy. Thank you. And everyone who watched this and enjoyed it, please subscribe to the feed. We appreciate that as well. Later.
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