Trump’s Reflecting Pool farce is no longer just a laughing matter

Exactly two months ago, President Donald Trump proudly announced the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. “You’re going to end up with a beautiful, beautiful reflecting pool, the way it’s supposed to be,” he told reporters gathered in the Oval Office. Instead, the project quickly became a laughing stock: missed deadlines, no-bid contracts, algae outbreaks and peeling paint. The symbolism of Trump creating a real-life swamp was almost too perfect.

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Over the weekend, however, this farcical story took a more serious turn. As Trump blamed “vandalism” by “radical left lunatics,” The Washington Post reported that “five people had been arrested and accused of vandalism, according to an administration official.” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro told Fox News that “anyone who is in a position of vandalizing or attempting to vandalize the pool will face the criminal justice system in D.C.”

Until the past few days, the botched renovation resembled a common Trump narrative: hubris and corruption combining to leave things worse than when he started. Now, it is another story typical of the Trump era: the abuse of state prosecutorial power.

The circumstances under which most of these arrests took place remains unclear. But one of the people arrested, David Hearn, denies the charges. He told The Washington Post that he merely put his hand in the water and touched a piece of the pool liner that was already peeling. And neither Trump nor his administration has provided evidence of vandalism (never mind the many videos of paint that peeled all by itself).

The rush to tout the charges recalls other flimsy cases previously brought by Pirro’s office. Last summer, for instance, the Department of Justice tried three times to charge Sidney Reid with felony assault of a federal officer at an immigration protest. Three times, grand juries refused to indict — “a sign that things are fully off the rails,” as my colleague Jordan Rubin wrote at the time. Pirro’s office then charged Reid with a misdemeanor, but a jury acquitted her. Around the same time, a grand jury refused to indict Sean Dunn for throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent. Again, Pirro’s office charged him with a misdemeanor and again, a jury acquitted.

Previous acquittals, however, likely will be cold comfort to those arrested, who will have to spend time and money facing down an administration that wants to send them to prison. “The government’s unfair prosecution of me caused my life to be at a standstill for three months,” Reid wrote for MS NOW after her acquittal. “I stopped unpacking my apartment and closed myself off from everything.” Even when the result is an acquittal, the arrest itself sends a message.