FEDS INDICTED A 67-YEAR-OLD CANOEIST OVER A POOL THEIR OWN CONTRACTOR WRECKED

A D.C. Superior Court judge just put the dumbest case of the year in the ground. Judge Todd Edelman dismissed the Reflecting Pool vandalism charge against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn with prejudice, meaning prosecutors can never refile it. Quick recap for anyone who tuned out. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool got a new blue coating this year, and it almost immediately started peeling and growing algae. Trump said vandals. The Justice Department indicted Hearn, 67, for allegedly ripping out a chunk of sealant, a felony that requires proving more than $1,000 in damage. Then U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro read the Interior Department's own evidence and concluded the problem was a "botched installation." In September the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, admitted "human oversight" and a plan that layered two incompatible chemicals. Trump handled this gracefully. He said Pirro "folded like an umbrella" and that she "choked," and he brought up Hearn's past ActBlue donations, which is a vibe, not a charge. DOJ still asked to keep the case technically alive so it could recharge him within six years. Edelman wrote 26 pages saying no, citing "exceptional circumstances" and political pressure from the President on his own subordinates, and noting the government's own filings made a new indictment "fanciful." Three other people charged over the pool already had their cases quietly dropped. Hearn was the only one a grand jury ever indicted.

Why you should give a shit: The feds spent three months trying to pin a peeling pool liner on a 67-year-old paddler, and the judge had to write 26 pages to make it stop, which tells you the guardrail here was one guy in a robe and nothing else.