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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Bulwark Takes. I'm Sonny Bunch. I'm joined today by Bill Kristol. We're going to be talking about one of the most, one of the most outrageous things that has happened in the Trump administration. I think I. Look, there's all sorts of corruption, petty and otherwise. And you know, we can talk about demolishing the White House, etc. But this is a case where Bill, the White House has taken, has used the force of law to try and persecute somebody for their own mistakes, for their own, for their own misdeeds, lied about it, lied about the person, lied about what happened and, and used the power of the state against a guy.
- [00:36]
B
Right.
- [00:36]
A
We're talking, of course, about the reflecting pool. David Hearn, who is an Olympic canoeist, was arrested for vandalism, charged with felony vandalism because he was supposedly destroying the, the great beautiful sealant on the reflecting pool that had turned it, you know, the lovely shade of blue that Trump wanted. And you know, this case goes through the courts and then late Friday night, Friday night news dump Gini Pirro goes out there is like, oh, by the way, actually, it wasn't vandalism at all. The, the whole thing is, has been botched from the start. It's actually the Department of Interior's fault. And we, we gonna, we're not gonna prosecute the guy. We want him to be set free. I, I find this all incredibly outrageous and frustrating, Bill, but I think you are in an even darker place than me at this point.
- [01:25]
C
Well, just, it shows how willing they all are to lie. From Trump on down to the Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, who was, so far as one knew before the Trump administration was a pretty standard issue Republican governor, but not a congenital liar. But people under Burgum, it's not like Doug Burgum personally did all this stuff, transmitted all the stuff from Interior to Justice. And it's not like Jeanine Pirro was the only person in justice to accept or pretend to accept what Interior did. They had FBI agents, remember park police out, out looking at the place, looking at the reflecting pool. So the degree to which the culture of lying or the pressure to lie and exceeding to the pressure to lie has just permeated through the Trump administration and down the ranks, I find ominous. In this case, it didn't work. And that's good. One other point I'll make just on the slightly more ominous side though, is, I mean, he got off the unjustly accused innocent man. He got off partly because he got pro bono legal help from very good attorneys. I actually am on the board of the Democracy Defenders Fund, so I'm a little biased, but Norm Eisen Representative in Court also the Washington Litigation Group, another group that I've been slightly involved in helping get some funding to nonprofits. So they get to use taxpayer money to prosecute someone unjustly. And the opposition, if I can put it that way, has to raise money, which they did. But I mean, you know, from, from donors and stuff to fight back. And obviously it's an unequal, that's an unequal fight and it means that you can win a bunch of them and it's good that we, that the good guys did in this case. But you know, the 20th person who's prosecuted unjustly, not in Washington, D.C. and not at the Reflecting Pool, but in Omaha, Nebraska for some little thing that got, that got annoyed, the Trump administration can't get that level of legal assistance. So the whole thing is both, as you've said, I mean, really ridiculous and embarrassing and humiliating, but, but also really a window into how an authoritarian administration works.
- [03:24]
A
I think we should note that there are still some cases outstanding. Right. So this was the felony case against David Hearn. It has been dismissed, but there are still a handful of cases out there working their way through the system. Right. I can't imagine those hold up at this point.
- [03:37]
C
Yeah, I doubt it.
- [03:38]
A
Yeah, yeah. I think it's five misdemeanor cases.
- [03:41]
C
I think this case, I don't fully understand this was dismissed with prejudice or without prejudice. I can remember which one is the one where you say it. But they could bring the case again, I assume the judge isn't going to accept that and it's going to just relegated to the ash heap of history. But again, as you say though, and you know, again, other people look at this and think, well, this got dismissed, but I might not have this legal help, so maybe I won't get us, you know, I won't cross some aspect of the Trump administration that could get me arrested. Beside, as I say, I won't have this kind of high class, this publicity and high class legal help. So I think one shouldn't underestimate just the intimidation effects something like this could have. Hopefully it has the reverse effect of also embarrassing the Trump administration. But since they seem incapable of embarrassment, I'm dubious how much and I'm serious about that. I mean, does it, I was on a legal chain with a bunch of lawyers. Well, this could deter them. This will really embarrass Them, I don't believe that. I mean, I think they need to be stopped. They need to be, their funding needs to be cut, they need to be investigated and they need to be congressional oversight, presumably the next Congress in a very serious and aggressive kind. But the idea that they're going to sort of. Well, here's an obvious question. Is anyone in the Interior Department or the Justice Department to pay a price for this? Are they going to be disciplined, do you think?
- [04:53]
A
No, no, no, of course not. Of course not. It really is just reading through the documents, reading through the filing, looking at how this whole thing, you know, kind of came together and then fell apart is, is so telling about how shameless all of these, all of these people are. Like, first of all, first of all, let's just go back to the very beginning of this, right? How did this begin? This began because the President decided to send a no bid contract to a guy to do the, the sealant on the pool. He contract to another guy who looked like a cartoon mobster. Remember, remember the guy who did the, you know, the filter, the filtration system? This is a different guy, but he was doing sealant, did a bad job. They, you know, the President drove over it in his motorcade. Who knows if that broke it? It didn't. Seal started peeling up immediately. And, and, and folks at the Interior knew about this. Like it's not, it's not like it was, it was a hidden thing. They knew that there were problems from the beginning. They knew that, that it was no good, but it was, but they just, I guess lied to the doj. And this is, this is the thing that is, this is the thing that is so troubling to me.
- [05:57]
B
Right.
- [05:58]
A
Is that you, you have one part of the government, you have the Department of the Interior just straight up lying to the Department of Justice. Department of justice goes out there and does their, does an investigation, but, and eventually they get to the point where they dismiss it. But, you know, we've got clips of Jeannie Pirro out there talking about how guilty this guy is, how obviously we're going to have so much proof of. They're out there, he's out there cutting up the thing. Can we play, can we play the video? I think folks need to see it.
- [06:26]
B
He caused damage and that damage is over $1,000. Keying in on that. How do you prove that thousand dollars with an expert? Come to the trial. You can, we will hear all that at the trial. Did he have any tools or was it just his bare hands? Right now we Believe it's his bare hands. Both hands. So does that indicate in your belief that it was probably damaged before, or do you believe that he. Oh, he damaged it further. But do you believe it had already been damaged before? He damaged the pool before he touched it. He damaged this pool.
- [07:01]
A
But there had been, you know, all these videos, obviously.
- [07:03]
B
Well, good. I'm glad you've got that evidence. Come on in the grand jury. You can testify. Next.
- [07:08]
A
The smugness and just kind of vitriol is really striking. But she's just reflecting the president. Right. Like this is just a reflection of what he wanted.
- [07:19]
C
Absolutely. You know, I struck watching the clip. I hadn't seen it in a while. I don't know who the guy in the white uniform behind Firoh is. I assume maybe it's the park police. Do you think? I don't know. It was. Didn't look like. Wasn't a DOJ attorney. It was someone who's more of a police. So that's another part of the government that's implicated. And I think there were other people. I haven't seen the broad shot, so to speak, but I don't think there was just one person standing behind her. She probably had other people from agencies that, quote, investigated this. I also would point out, we don't know. I mean, DOJ says that Interior misled them. We don't know that that's the case. I mean, we don't know. What if some deputy assistant Secretary Interior said to some deputy, some lawyer at doj, hey, you know, this is not great. I mean, this isn't really quite the way it happened. And the guy said, well, okay, maybe I'll take that up the chain. Whoops. The chain. You know, I'm sorry, we don't want to hear that. I mean, that is. The degree of corruption throughout is so great. And Pirro then just asserting the guilt of someone based on evidence when she says that. If you're an Actual serious U.S. attorney, you have to know that that is true. You can't just be depending on obviously politically pressured representations. If they were such representations from the Interior Department. But you're right, the fish rots at the head, you know, from the head down. And this is entirely the way Trump wants his, his executive branch to work.
- [08:34]
A
Yeah. And if we get. Let's, let's watch Trump because, I mean, it's really, again, it's very striking just watching him speak about this.
- [08:41]
B
Are the contractors who did the init for the reflecting pool, are they to blame for the current condition or is it.
- [08:47]
D
No vandalism. Vandals. You know, we have a hundred and we have a, I think 290, 300 foot slit right through it. Probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind. Somebody went in with a knife and cut it. They cut it up good. And then they cut a 200, 350 foot slip in the form of lots of little slips. The reflecting pool was so beautiful. They tried to destroy it. They cut it up with a box knife and tried to destroy it. But we caught them. They would cut it and they would grab this very expensive and very good material, totally waterproof, and rip it. These people are sick. They ripped a scar 350ft long. Now, I can't help it if somebody goes in.