A member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet hurled angry threats at a 67-year-old canoeist on Saturday.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum took to X to air his grievances after U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro dropped her Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool vandalism case against Olympian David Hearn — and blamed Burgum’s department for it.
“Vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool,” Burgum wrote. “We won’t back down to deranged people who want to destroy, deface, or degrade our monuments.”
Burgum’s words echoed Trump’s claims, made earlier on his Truth Social network.
“I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro,” Trump wrote. “I don’t know what she was thinking?”
Pirro’s thinking, as revealed in a 20-page court filing Friday, was that there was no evidence to support her case.
The damage was the result of a “flawed installation by the contractor” and “the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026,” the filing stated.
“Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Pirro also accused the Interior Department of misleading her prosecutors and withholding the fact that the pool lining began to peel within two days of the project’s completion.
This did not sit well with Burgum, who doubled down on his insults.
“We also provided the U.S. Attorney’s office expert and eyewitness testimony to the damage done by vandals and provided every piece of evidence they asked for in the requested time line detailing each area of damage at the pool,” Burgum declared.
“Intentional damage done to the Reflecting Pool is no different than defacing any one of our other national monuments.”
Hearn’s lawyers said in a statement Friday that charges should never have been filed, PBS News reported.
“Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong,” the lawyers said. “The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology.”
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