Trump Screwed as Reflecting Pool Confession Sinks Case

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0:30Michael Popok:There was no criminal vandalism or felonious work in the middle of the night with knives and box cutters to rip up the seven acres of pool liner of Donald Trump's reflecting pool project. And I found a piece of evidence that should be and hopefully will be used by former Olympic cyclist Davey Hearn in his criminal case to prove his innocence. And where did I find it? It was hiding in plain sight. On the website for the company hired by Donald Trump to do the installation of the aligner, the Atlantic Industrial Company posted that they are making the repairs pursuant to a warranty. And what does that mean in my world?

1:12Michael Popok:That means that they're not claiming and their insurance company is not claiming that there was any criminal vandalism, any third party intentional act that would have destroyed the warranty. They are admitting that their shoddy work, substandard work, that the installation was not fit for its intended purpose, not fit for merchantability. And therefore, by saying that it's warranty work that they're doing to fix the pool, they are confessing as an agent of Donald Trump that the pool problem is not the result of Davey Hearn touching a two foot by two foot section of floating liner. And now we've got the new reporting about what is happening down there, the destruction of evidence, despite motions that have been filed to prevent the destruction of that evidence.

2:08Michael Popok:Is the FBI collection team collecting evidence or are they destroying it? Donald Trump claimed there were chemicals that were poured into the pool. That pool's been drained three times. That evidence has been destroyed. And there has not been one, one public disclosure of any video, any photograph that demonstrates that Davey Hearn violently tried to rip a piece of the liner and committed the felonious, willful, malicious destruction of federal property, meaning they're not going to be able to prove that at trial in September when that case goes to trial. And I think Norm Eisen, the lawyer for Davey Hearn, should be using the warranty language that I found to say to the jury, there is a simple solution.

3:01Michael Popok:There's a simple, this isn't a mystery of why that reflecting pool seven acre system failed after a week of application. The contractor admits that they made the error and that they're making the fix pursuant to a warranty. If anybody had a vested interest to investigate and determine that their warranty had been violated by the violent acts of another, it's the installer. But they didn't do it. And they didn't claim it. And their insurance company didn't claim it. That's how I know it's true. If you get the insurance company to agree, it's got to be true. And every document that's been filed in this case helps Davey Hearn's defense in his prosecution, including the only piece of paper filed by the government from the National Park Service where they also do not claim that Davey Hearn's felonious, malicious destruction is the cause of the failure of the Reflecting Pool project.

4:06Michael Popok:I'm Michael Popak. You're on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. Two parts of the story, two halves that I will join as one. I went on the website for Atlantic Industrial Coding, and I see, because they're proud to be doing the project, that they said they are making the repair pursuant to the warranty. In my world, that means they are admitting that there was an installation problem consistent with what the Washington Post reported. The way that was installed in those seven acres, seven acres, was to apply first a substrate called Rhino 5000, and then a polyurethra dyed American flag blue on top.

4:56Michael Popok:So picture it as a two-layer cake. They couldn't apply it just in one fell swoop, so they did it in rectangular sections. The sections come together at seams. That is often the root cause of water penetration and infiltration in what amounts to a waterproofing system. I've been involved in cases in the past when I was a younger lawyer involving membranes, waterproofing, and water penetration, and other construction type cases that are similar. So at the seams, it looks like they didn't properly apply the product. They didn't rough up the edges and apply it one on top of the other to create a seal.

5:43Michael Popok:Instead, there is a seam. Water got under the seam, and you now have floating huge sections of liner from the bottom of the pool. Let's go to Davy Hearn's case for a moment. Janine Pirro declares, Davy Hearn violently grabbed a piece of it and yanked it. Davy Hearn's testimony, it was floating already, and I touched it. Okay? That's why these cases should never be brought. I've seen the video of Davey Hearn getting arrested. He just done a 52-mile bike ride because he's an Olympic cyclist, former. Got off, wanted to see the reflecting pool, saw a floating souvenir, went to touch it. That's the case.

6:24Michael Popok:There's no evidence, you can see from the video, of him having a box cutter, a knife, scuba gear, diving to the bottom of the pool and ripping it up because the problem is at the bottom of the pool. And the bottom is coming to the top, you know. But to hear Janine Pirro talk about it, you'd think this guy was a one-man wrecking crew and wrecked a seven-acre project by touching a two-foot by two-foot piece. Play the clip. By Hearn's own admission, on June 19th, he reached down into the pool. Our evidence further shows that the National Park Service employees observed Hearn actually forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands.

7:23According to witnesses, Hearn damaged approximately two square feet of sealant from the bottom of the pool. A Parks employee actually told Hearn to stop, to stop his behavior and stop what he was doing. Hearn reacted by shouting at that Parks employee, saying that she cared too much about the reflecting pool, and why did she even care, since it wasn't her pool. Now, Mr. Hearn's behavior was characterized by witnesses as belligerent, rude, and disrespectful, according to National Park Service employees that witnessed the event.

8:12Michael Popok:If I'm Norm Eisen, who's the lawyer for Davey, I make a big deal out of the warranty language that I found. Because in the world of commercial litigation and products liability and construction litigation that I've practiced, when a contractor is being dragged back to a job to make repairs and he claims it's under warranty, that means he's confessing there was a problem with the workmanship of the installation. You had several contractors who had never worked together working on this project, one doing one base layer, one doing the other layer. There was no spec. You know, they couldn't go look it up and chat GBT how to do a seven acre installation in a week.

8:59Michael Popok:And it failed. And it happens. It happens in construction sites every day. There is no such thing as a perfect construction job or a perfect build or installation. And this is an example of it. So the warranty, if there was a way, I assure you, for Atlantic Industrial to claim that the third party like Davey Hearn had breached the warranty and for them not to come back, they would have done it. And if they wouldn't have done it, those kind of claims are insured. Their insurance company would have made them do it. But they didn't because Davey Hearn did not destroy the reflecting pool. Neither did the other three or four people who were arrested for misdemeanors.

9:43Michael Popok:That pool is failing because of a combination of incompetence in the White House, incompetence in the application process and the contractor selected, the lack of forethought and planning, the lack of involvement of experts who had any similar project. I mean, this is what we call a sui generis project. This is a project one of one. It's a one-off project. There's no seven-acre reflecting pool. Nobody has that on their portfolio, on their resume. They had to make it up in the field, right? Field changes happen all the time and they got it wrong. And what the Washington Post noted is these huge sections that had been conjoined together had separated because water had penetrated it and it floated to the top.

10:32Michael Popok:Then you add on top of that the malfunctioning filtration system, which was supplied by another Trump crony, a two-time convicted felon for election fraud, who is company Greenwater, appropriate, pumping ozone into the water supply. It failed after the second day. It's not the first time that filtration process failed. It failed in a Tijuana River project the government also paid for. So you have untested, faulty science being used for filtration. You've got incompetence in workmanship and installation. And then wrong place, wrong time, Davey Hearn touching a liner, floating in the pool. Here's Norm Eisen giving, I hope, everybody confidence about that jury.

11:25And I'm going to talk next about how the prosecutor is going to lose that case.

11:29Michael Popok:Play the clip. Hello, everyone. I'm Norman Eisen of the Democracy Defenders Fund, co-counsel for Mr. Hearn, together with Mary Dorman of the Washington Litigation Group. Today, Davy Hearn pled not guilty because he is not guilty. If Mr. Hearn can be charged with a felony for touching the reflecting pool. Every American is at risk. And every American should be alarmed about this prosecution. This indictment reflects the administration's effort to scapegoat Davy and to shift blame for their own failures. Now, let me end it with what the prosecution is going to have to prove to a very skeptical, jaundiced-eyed jury in D.C., a jury that is pulled from the District of Columbia that's been abused by Donald Trump since almost day one with a takeover, their police chief and mayor almost being canned or sidelined in policing, National Guard and army marching on them, a siege mentality, and 150 homicides to boot.

12:55Michael Popok:And you think those jurors, those six or nine jurors in a D.C. court with a federal prosecutor on the other side asking them to convict a felony with a 10-year prison sentence for a guy who touched a liner given these he said, she said facts? You think that's going to happen or they're going to think kindly on that case? It's going to be another loss or it should be for Janine Pirro. She's got to prove two things and she can't prove either. One is malicious malice, malicious destruction. Malice is a legal term, but it is what it sounds like. It's somebody doing something not accidentally, not negligently, not even intentionally.

13:38Michael Popok:It's intentional plus a bad heart, bad mind, criminal mens rea, we call it, criminal mind. David Hearn is the living embodiment of somebody who's innocent. And when he testifies, which I'm sure he will at some point, you know, they have a choice not to under the Fifth Amendment. But I think he testifies against no evidence, no evidence, no video, no chemical. They've destroyed everything. They pumped out the water. They haven't. They've been doing evidence collection analysis, all trampling over the site. And so they're never going to prove malice. And Davey Hearn's lawyers, Norm Meissen, are going to remind the jury of that.

14:30Michael Popok:And the burden beyond a reasonable doubt is on the government. Even if they prove that, they got to prove$1 ,000 worth of damage. This was a two foot by two foot section that was floating. Let's assume he even, he ripped it up. I mean, how did he rip it up? With what? With what tool? But even he says it was floating. He touched it. They say he violently yanked it. All right. Show me a video on that. How in a seven acre site, how many football fields is that? Seven-acre site. Is that like 25 football fields? A two-foot by two-foot piece of the turf? You touched it. You burned it. You ripped it up.

15:16Michael Popok:That's$1 ,000 worth of damage. It was a$1.7 million project. Do the math. So they'll never be able to prove$1 ,000 worth of damage to send this guy away for 10 years. And even if the jury somehow rolls over on the right side or the wrong side of the bed, doesn't like Davey Hearn, doesn't like Norm Eisen, loves the prosecutor, and against all of what I've just laid out, convicts, you've still got a judge who could overturn the jury verdict on a motion. What we call judgment notwithstanding the verdict or to nullify the jury result. And then sentencing. I mean, they could sentence him to nothing.

16:02That judge already let Davey Hearn walk free without a bond and did not adopt the Department of Justice's request

16:14Michael Popok:that he be banned from going to the reflecting pool. So she's already skeptical. And she's not going to handle the fact finding. That's the jury. But she is in charge of sentencing. So I'm glad we're here together. You're on Legal AF. I'm about to start a large vacation, but working vacation, a busman's holiday, they call it. So you'll be seeing me regularly on Midas Touch and on Legal AF. Take a minute, hit the free subscribe button over on Legal AF YouTube. And thank you for your generous spirit and heart. We've already crossed 1 ,170 ,000 subscribers, 700 million views, all because of you. I have one last ask.

16:54Michael Popok:Check to see if you're subscribed. And because it costs you nothing, but means the world to us. It really does help us get to that plateau. Till my next report, I'm Michael Popak. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro-democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legal AF MTN. That's at LegalAFMTN.

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