Pirro’s future in question amid break with Trump on Reflecting Pool
The Hill · C · trust 49/100
Comments: by Julia Manchester and Sophie Brams - 08/03/26 7:05 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Julia Manchester and Sophie Brams - 08/03/26 7:05 PM ET Comments: Link copied NOW PLAYING U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s clash with President Trump over the handling of the Reflecting Pool case is raising questions about her standing with the president, with whom she has enjoyed a friendly relationship for decades.
Pirro visited the White House Monday evening after Trump lashed out at her on camera hours earlier in the Oval Office, telling reporters she “folded like an umbrella” in her move to drop charges.
“The judge was extremely unfriendly to Jeanine, and frankly, I think she choked because the judge was really vicious,” Trump said.
“Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department,” he continued. “And I guess she choked. I don’t know what the hell happened.”
The White House did not respond to an inquiry on Pirro’s visit.
Trump had issued a rare rebuke of the former judge over the weekend after the Justice Department moved to drop the case on finding that the damage to the basin resulted from a “rushed and botched installation,” instead of alleged vandalism.
Prosecutors also blamed the firm that was granted a multimillion-dollar contract to perform the work and the Interior Department for its initial “barebones” report about the incident.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum also pushed back on the decision .
“I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking?” Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social.
“There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!” he added.
Trump did not answer Monday when asked if he was reconsidering Pirro’s role; however, CNN reported that Trump was weighing the possibility, citing two people familiar with his thinking.
“I’m not sure why a simple dismissal wasn’t enough. But going out of her way to admit that the White House was wrong — and throwing Secretary Burgum under the bus at the same time — isn’t really good for her job security,” said one former Trump administration official.
“A mistake like that probably has several people asking if she is really up to the job,” the official added.
The president tapped Pirro, a former judge and Fox News host, to be the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia in May 2025, and she was confirmed by the Senate that August.
Trump has a history of firing allies who do not follow through on his agenda or who defy him, leaving Pirro’s future in the administration uncertain.
During his first administration in 2018, Trump fired then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions after criticizing him for months for his move to recuse himself from the federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. The president fired then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that same year following a number of foreign policy disagreements and reported clashes.
Firings have been more rare during the second Trump administration, but there have been notable instances of Trump letting officials go over disagreements.
Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem became the first major dismissal of Trump’s second term after she claimed the president signed off on a $220 million ad campaign for the department. Noem and the administration had also faced intense backlash over the shooting deaths of two protesters at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this year.
Trump fired former Attorney General Pam Bondi in April following increased scrutiny over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and a string of losses in trying to prosecute a number of the president’s political enemies.
The move to reverse course and drop the charges marks a stunning turn for Pirro, who has often framed her office’s work as an extension of Trump’s vision for the nation’s capital. In the year since her Senate confirmation, she has repeatedly emphasized their shared priorities on crime and public safety, promising accountability for anyone who interferes with his mission to make D.C. “safe and beautiful” again.
In a separate case last year, federal prosecutors in Pirro’s office initially sought a felony indictment against a former Justice Department employee who hurled a sandwich at a federal agent during Trump’s law enforcement surge in D.C., but a grand jury refused to indict. Then her office pursued a misdemeanor assault charge against him instead, but he was ultimately found not guilty at trial.
The Reflecting Pool case fell under intense scrutiny when a grand jury indicted 67-year-old David Hearn, a three-time Olympic canoeist, on a charge of felony destruction of property after prosecutors alleged he “forcefully and violently” ripped up a piece of the pool’s bottom liner. He pleaded not guilty to the charge, which carried a maximum 10-year prison sentence, in D.C. Superior Court last month.
At the time, Pirro insisted her office had “tremendous evidence,” including eyewitness accounts from the U.S. Park Police that could prove Hearn deliberately damaged 2 square feet of sealant.
“Irrespective of whether or not, you know, we think that, you know, there is some situation that preceded it, we can state and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he caused damage and that damage is over $1,000,” she said during a press conference in early July.
But recent court filings indicated a change in the weeks that followed, with prosecutors concluding that the damage stemmed from flawed installation and an attempt to rush the job ahead of Trump’s July 4…
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