President Donald Trump’s repeated attempts to punish former Olympian David Hearn on the made-up vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool may backfire.
The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, was forced to drop the felony charges against Hearn on July 31 due to a lack of evidence, faulting Trump’s handpicked contractor for a shoddy renovation instead. But on Sunday, Trump was still pushing his false claim that Hearn actively vandalized the pool’s lining, claiming on Truth Social that a National Park Service career employee, “a highly credible witness,” watched Hearn “‘violently’ ripping and tugging at the Pool’s somewhat delicate coating.”
Hearn’s lawyers—Norm Eisen of Democracy Defenders Fund, Mary Dohrmann of Washington Litigation Group, and Steve Levin of Steptoe LLP—said in a statement Monday that they aren’t going to take “continued harassment” from the president.
“The government is continuing to attack an innocent man. Our first filing in the case on July 10 included photographic evidence from before Mr. Hearn touched the Reflecting Pool proving that he caused no damage,” the lawyers told Mediaite. “Our other filings provided even more proof. Finally, the U.S. Attorney’s own motion on July 31 admitted the damage was caused by a ‘botched installation and not vandalism.’ We are reviewing all legal remedies, including for this continued harassment. It is outrageous.”
This means that Hearn could sue Trump and the Department of Justice over the false claims, which the DOJ have already disavowed in court. There are a lot of unanswered questions over how Pirro’s office secured an indictment against Hearn in the first place with such faulty evidence. She later blamed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum for deliberately misleading her office about Hearn’s actions.
The New Republic’s Greg Sargent reports that Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are looking to open an investigation into how Hearn was charged and demand documents from the Justice and Interior Departments relating to that decision. Hearn’s lawyers are also seeking access to transcripts of the federal grand jury proceedings. Trump’s tantrum over the failed Reflecting Pool renovations may soon turn into a big legal headache for him and his administration.
Taylor Farms, the source of this summer’s cyclospora outbreak that’s causing an explosive diarrhea epidemic, now has to recall multiple products over a salmonella risk.
On Sunday, the Trump-linked company announced it was recalling a dozen different prepared food products, including jalapeño peppers, salsas, and guacamole due to salmonella contamination. Taylor Farms said the products came from Coast Citrus Distributors, and that the company was no longer sourcing peppers from one Sinaloa, Mexico, farmer.
The recall comes a week after another salmonella outbreak linked to jalapeño peppers from Mexico, which has made at least 345 people sick in 27 different states and resulted in 36 hospitalizations. Restaurant chains including Chipotle and Qdoba have since stopped using the peppers.
This summer has seen numerous food-borne illnesses spread across the U.S. following layoffs and staff cuts in regulatory agencies. The cyclospora outbreak has resulted in at least 18,517 cases across nine states listed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a New Republic analysis, and two deaths were reported in Michigan last week. (State officials noted that cyclosporiasis is usually not a life-threatening illness, and that both people who died had underlying health conditions.)
Last month, close to 1.6 million white shell eggs and brown cage-free shell eggs produced in Texas had to be recalled due to salmonella fears. The New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite, has infested cattle in Texas and spread to other states, causing an estimated $1 billion in damages.
Last year, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency cut a monitoring program for the screwworm and gutted the CDC team that would have handled the cyclospora outbreak. The people left behind, led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are now dealing with one crisis after another with little public confidence that more aren’t on the way.
It seems President Donald Trump’s fascination with AI-generated images must be genetic.
In two separate posts on Instagram Sunday evening, Eric Trump shared a series of photographs from the LIV New York Golf tournament at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Both posts included the same picture of the president, who was photographed grinning beside two of his grandchildren—and the image appeared to have been altered using AI.
