Leaker reveals the true danger of Trump’s Reflecting Pool witch hunt

What happened

AlterNet reports that former Homeland Security official Miles Taylor argues the failed prosecution of former Olympic canoeist David Hearn exposed a broader danger: federal prosecution being used to retaliate against perceived enemies of President Donald Trump. Hearn was detained after touching a peeling liner at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, publicly accused of vandalism and indicted on a felony carrying up to ten years, even though Interior Department engineers had reportedly identified defects in the liner eight days earlier.

According to AlterNet, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro eventually acknowledged that the case lacked a basis. Trump reportedly accused her of “choking” and pressed the Justice Department to continue, but a federal judge dismissed the charges with prejudice last week, barring another prosecution on those charges. Hearn’s lawyers then requested investigations by watchdog offices at the Justice and Interior departments.

Taylor connected Hearn’s case to Trump’s executive order directing investigations of Taylor after accusing him of stealing classified information and committing treason. Taylor denies wrongdoing and says the order identified no supporting conduct. He alleges that federal agents contacted former classmates, government employees were fired because of their association with him, and investigators examined his emails. AlterNet presents Taylor’s account and conclusions; it does not independently establish every allegation he makes.

Power issued the orders

Hearn did not command prosecutors, deploy National Guard personnel or control the government’s evidence. Taylor does not control security clearances, federal investigators or departmental employment. The institutional power sits with the president, political appointees and the officials empowered to convert presidential grievance into government action.

That distinction is the story. Trump reportedly demanded that Hearn’s prosecution continue after its weakness had become apparent. In Taylor’s case, Trump signed an executive order accusing him of crimes and directing agencies to investigate. These were not social-media insults between political equals. They were presidential interventions backed by the coercive machinery of the state.

The process was the punishment

A baseless case does not become harmless because it eventually collapses. Hearn was detained, branded a vandal by the interior secretary and exposed to a felony prosecution carrying a possible ten-year sentence. Taylor describes sixteen months without a serious response to his inspector-general complaint while people around him allegedly faced inquiries and professional consequences.

Dismissal is therefore not a complete institutional success. The government had already imposed fear, expense and reputational damage. When officials can initiate that punishment first and confront accountability much later—if at all—the absence of a conviction does little to deter the abuse.

“Choked” is the misdirection

Trump’s reported complaint that Pirro “choked” reframes a failure of evidence as a failure of nerve. That is a revealing substitution. A prosecutor’s duty is not to deliver the president’s preferred defendant; it is to bring cases supported by admissible evidence and law.

The same misdirection appears whenever career lawyers who reject weak cases are depicted as obstacles while compliant officials are treated as loyal. AlterNet, relying heavily on Taylor, describes lawyers being pushed out or pressured in matters involving James Comey, Letitia James and others. The article does not supply enough detail to adjudicate those cases here. It does, however, identify the operative demand: produce charges against designated enemies, with evidentiary objections recast as insubordination.

Complicity has names

Taylor’s strongest point is that institutional abuse is not executed by presidential rhetoric alone. Lawyers draft orders, investigators make calls, agency leaders fire employees and prosecutors sign indictments. Each official retains agency, even under political pressure.

Taylor asserts that participating officials knew the evidence was defective and understood the constitutional problem. That claim requires investigation rather than automatic acceptance. But the Hearn prosecution supplies a concrete basis for scrutiny: officials reportedly knew the liner was already failing, yet the government still pursued a serious felony case until it disintegrated.

Calling this mere confusion would erase those decisions. Bureaucracies do not accidentally indict people. Named officials authorize each step, and professional obligations do not disappear because the pressure comes from the Oval Office.

Retaliation as government practice

The larger pattern is the conversion of personal grievance into administrative purpose. A president identifies an enemy; appointees translate that hostility into investigations or charges; weaker actors absorb the cost; and institutional resistance is portrayed as betrayal.

Taylor’s proposed response—inspector-general inquiries, professional discipline where misconduct is established and later review of retaliatory cases—must itself remain tied to evidence and due process. Otherwise accountability merely imitates the conduct it condemns.

The systemic failure is not only that an unsupported prosecution could begin. It is that the state contained enough willing hands to carry it forward, and apparently too few mechanisms capable of stopping it before the target had already been punished.

Thanks to Alter Net

Source: Leaker reveals the true danger of Trump’s Reflecting Pool witch hunt