{"id":1700,"date":"2026-07-31T22:23:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T22:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/?p=1700"},"modified":"2026-07-31T22:23:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T22:23:01","slug":"justice-department-drops-criminal-case-against-ex-olympian-charged-with-damaging-reflecting-pool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/?p=1700","title":{"rendered":"Justice Department drops criminal case against ex-Olympian charged with damaging Reflecting Pool"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/3f3fbad\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/7553x5033+0+1\/resize\/980x653!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2Fbf%2F5b%2F247b260453f8340c7af4e0026675%2F6c139c1887624b6398a3e0d71b15b1f9\" width=\"100%\" \/><small>The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is seen from the Washington Monument, Friday, July 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)<\/small><\/p>\n<p>2026-07-31T22:16:57Z<\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Justice Department moved Friday to dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian with deliberately damaging <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/reflecting-pool-drained-washington-monument-trump-repairs-0745ba52bc7273ce411ef29880f71cf0\">the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Government lawyers said in a 20-page court filing that information provided since the indictment of David Hearn shows that the damage was the result of a \u201cflawed installation by the contractor\u201d as well as \u201cthe rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is seen from the Washington Monument, Friday, July 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein) 2026-07-31T22:16:57Z WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Justice Department moved Friday to dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian with deliberately damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Government lawyers said in a 20-page court filing that&hellip;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}