Judge Todd Edelman has issued an order dismissing the case against Olympic canoeist Davey Hearn, but reserving whether he should do so with or without prejudice for more briefing.
ORDERED that the Government’s Motion to Dismiss the Indictment is GRANTED IN PART; and it is
FURTHER ORDERED that this case is DISMISSED, and it is
FURTHER ORDERED that the government’s request for a dismissal without prejudice and the Defendant’s request for dismissal with prejudice are HELD IN ABEYANCE, and it is
FURTHER ORDERED that the government may file a Reply to the Defendant’s Response to Government’s Motion to Dismiss the Indictment, not to exceed 15 doublespaced pages, on or before August 18, 2026; and it is
FURTHER ORDERED that the Defendant may file a Sur-Reply, not to exceed 10 double-spaced pages, no more than 7 days after the filing of any government Reply.
There are several notable aspects to this.
First, he notes that Hearn has moved for the case to be dismissed with prejudice, in part to prevent Trump from demanding it be refiled, but that as an alternative, Hearn would like the grand jury transcripts that this motion to dismiss may have been an attempt to stave off.
1 In the alternative, the defense requests that the Court grant the Defendant’s pending Motion for Disclosure of Grand Jury Minutes and Legal Instructions or conduct an in camera review of the requested materials before ruling on the Government’s Motion.
You might think the order for more briefing is just an invitation for DOJ to do what they should have done from the start, to dismiss the case with prejudice.
Except that, remarkably, Edelman has built in a chance for Hearn to respond to whatever the government files. To fact check it, perhaps. He describes how, barely three weeks after indicting Hearn, DOJ claimed it had learned new stuff, as if for the first time.
Approximately three weeks later, on July 31, 2026, the government filed its Motion to Dismiss the Indictment (“Government’s Motion”). The Government’s Motion describes in considerable detail information the government reportedly learned from the Department of the Interior after the return of the Indictment that “strongly suggest(s] that a rushed and botched installation [of the lining] by AIC, the primary contractor, led to the damage to the lining of the Reflecting Pool,” Gov’t Mot, at 18, and that has led the government to conclude that “it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt,”
Of course, Hearn has debunked all of that. They always had a photo in their possession showing that the flap of liner they accused Hearn of ripping was ripped before he got there — they just were lying to judges about where it came from and, possibly, when it was taken. They had notice no later than July 10, barely a week after the indictment, that Interior knew the earliest damage was not vandalism. DOJ’s own agents sussed out the pool on July 13, but Jeanine Pirro claimed they only checked it on on July 17 (or maybe on July 16).
Edelman has built in a sur-reply for Hearn, as if he fully expects he may be lied to, ten pages due a week after DOJ files.
Normally, judges permit or invite sur-replies if the moving party adds new details in their reply, but Edelman has built that in, and told DOJ he has built that in.
Not only that, Edelman plans to have a hearing about this. While he replaced a pretrial hearing that had been scheduled for September 11, his order says his staffers will contact the parties to schedule a hearing on the pending motions.
‘The undersigned’s chambers will contact counsel to schedule a hearing on the pending motions.
Motions, plural. Which therefore presumably includes the request for grand jury transcripts, as well as Hearn’s demand he get his phone back.
Jeanine Pirro utterly botched the game theory of this dismissal in every way. And for the life of me, I can’t imagine how she improves on her abysmal performance thus far.
Update: Disgruntled Interior staffers have taken this moment to tell Politico that Doug Burgum is evading the Federal Records Act.
[O]fficials at Interior decry what they view as a culture of secrecy. Burgum asked colleagues early on about trying to add a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, on the department’s sixth floor even though one exists just three floors below, according to a person who heard the comment. According to three staffers who witnessed it, officials have routinely shredded official documents and use disappearing Signal messages — even for mundane scheduling matters — to avoid communications being preserved, as is required by the Federal Records Act.
“They’re terrified of written records,” said one former official.
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