Conversation
-
Doug Burgum Accuses Jeanine Pirro of Lying
source
Donald Trump’s psychological need to create his own reality has started to create problems for his efforts to abuse the legal system.His attempt to complain that he was debanked by Capital One, for example, forced the bank to reveal that it cut Trump off not because of politics but because of evidence of money laundering.
To the contrary, those documents and Plaintiffs’ own allegations make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (“AML”) reasons. The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by Capital One’s AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance. Capital One never publicized the termination decision nor its confidential internal process giving rise to the closure, and it permitted Plaintiffs several months (and granted several extensions) to find new banking services, which they did.
Trump’s attempt to sue himself has because a leaker exposed his tax crimes has, at the least, created new precedents about his own conflicts and could do much worse.
And as I predicted just two days after Davey Hearn’s arrest, the attempt to actually gin up prosecutions to blame imaginary vandals for Trump’s own corruption did in fact lead to the release of damning proof that Trump’s attempt to fix the reflecting pool instead did serious damage to it.
The heavy-handed arrests themselves have gotten a lot of attention. Good luck to Jeanine Pirro attempting to prosecute these cases, not least because doing so would require calculating the value of a painted cover that degraded before the defendants came along. Prosecuting these cases would necessitate addressing whether Trump’s repairs did what they were supposed to, an inquiry Pirro will be loathe to do.
Trump’s emotional neediness may well now be exacerbating things.
Trump responded to the motion to dismiss Davey Hearn’s case the only way a Narcissist could: by lashing out and lying some more: first, by posting a tweet claiming to “disagree” with Pirro, followed by a video that appears to show Black kids being Black kids, followed by hours of AI slop creating the false illusion he’s sexy.
To be fair, Trump’s rant had the desired effect. Lazy journalists focused their reports on the motion to dismiss on Trump’s fee fees, not on the corruption described in the MTD or, better yet, the abundant evidence that Pirro is still lying.
But then Doug Burgum did what courtiers to corrupt dictators are required to do. He performed belief in Trump’s own stated claim that the damage was done by vandals.
In the process, he did something else: He called Jeanine Pirro a liar.
In their motion to dismiss, prosecutors claimed they had [made] dozens of attempts [were made] to get Interior to cough up evidence.
[P]rosecutors specifically involved in the cases related to the Reflecting Pool made dozens and dozens of communications were made in an effort to identify and obtain the materials necessary to have all information to evaluate the case. After significant demands by USAO-DC, USPP provided the police reports and body-worn camera for roughly 10 individuals associated with the Reflecting Pool.
But then, the prosecutors claim, when they accompanied Hearn’s expert (or lawyer) to the reflecting pool on July 17 (only it was probably July 16), they saw, as if for the first time, that the pool was badly damaged, and so demanded — and received — more material from Interior. And as a result, prosecutors implausibly claim, they learned for the first time how badly Trump fucked up the renovation.
On July 17, 2026, as a defense expert inspected the now-drained Reflecting Pool, United States Attomey Pirro and senior USAO-DC employees once again visited the site and this time immediately noted extensive damage throughout the now-drained pool, It was at that time that USAO-DC first became aware of the significant damage throughout the pool and accordingly requested all documents from DOI concerning the how the pool was lined and all records regarding the installation of the lining.
Based on this request, USAO-DC received 695 megabytes of additional documents from DOI, which took days to review. These documents indicated a rushed and flawed installation process, with repeated failures of the lining during the installation process, and extensive peeling of the lining throughout the Reflecting Pool. This was the first time that DOI made USAO-DC aware of such information.
Now, as this has been developing — including when Nicole Sandler and I recorded our weekly podcast at noon on Friday just hours before the motion to dismiss — I have repeatedly noted how fucking stupid it is to dick around on a case, like this one, on which Norm Eisen is on the defense team. Eisen’s Democracy Defenders litigate against Trump’s corruption on a near daily basis in any case. In the last week, for example, Democracy Defenders have been involved in an AFGE lawsuit to enforce EEOC, they’ve claimed some credit for the ruling halting the Paramount takeover of Warners, and they’ve renewed their effort to get Todd Blanche disbarred. (See their press releases here.)
But as tireless as Eisen’s civil lawsuits have been, a defense attorney has tools that are unavailable to mere civil litigators, starting with the fact that (as happened here) you can demand certain things in discovery that it usually takes a year or more to get via lawsuit, if even that succeeds.
And so, I’ve been thinking since Eisen first filed as an attorney for Hearn, you’d have to be fucking stupid to dick around on this case.
Crazier still, Trump has had it in for Eisen for some time, including him along with Tish James, Alvin Bragg, and Andrew Weissmann, in the list of people from whom he has stripped security clearances. Did he miss that Eisen is involved in this case??? Did he not know that by tampering in the case he might give Norm Eisen leverage to expose more corruption?
After DOJ filed the motion to dismiss Friday, Eisen, along with co-counsels Mary Dohrmann and Steve Levin, issued a fairly mild statement. Trump owes Hearn an apology, they said.
The Trump administration’s case against Davey Hearn should have never been brought. Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong. The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology.
But then Trump, by “disagreeing” with Jeanine Pirro, at a minimum gave Hearn’s lawyers reason to demand that Judge Todd Edelman dismiss the case with prejudice. If the President is attacking his US Attorney, after all, then Hearn has no way of ensuring that Trump won’t just replace her with someone who’ll renew the case.
And then Burgum directly disputed prosecutors’ claim that they [made] “significant demands” [were made] before Interior coughed up the bare minimum of evidence for these cases. Burgum claims Interior complied “in the requested time line.”
We also provided the U.S. Attorney’s office expert and eyewitness testimony to the damage done by vandals and provided every piece of evidence they asked for in the requested time line detailing each area of damage at the pool.
To be clear: We know Pirro’s prosecutors are lying. Among other things, the witness who was supposed to testify that Hearn had done $1,000 of damage instead testified, at first, about how much damage pre-existed Hearn’s arrival.
According to the witness, the pool was leaking more than one million gallons of water per week; its expansion joints had exceeded their service life; and the liner already contained a rip, See Sealed Exhibit 1, Grand Jury Tr. of MR. at 6-7, 19-20 (July 2, 2026). The govemment’s witness further confirmed that repairs were already necessary to address those conditions. Exhibit 1 at 28. Those facts establish the legally relevant baseline: the condition of the property immediately before the alleged conduct.
And when prosecutors described what is likely that witness’ testimony, they left out all those details.
W-4, an employee specializing in maintenance and repairs employed by the National Park Service, stated that repairing the additional damage caused to the reflecting pool based on the defendant’s conduct would cost over $1000.
But before Trump and Burgum opened their yaps, it was not clear that Eisen and Dohrmann and Levin would be able to do much about the clear misrepresentations in the motion to dismiss. After all, dismissing the case normally moots things like a request to see grand jury testimony.
But now a cabinet member has accused Jeanine Pirro of lying. Doug Burgum has suggested that Pirro had all the evidence she asked for in order to make a sound prosecutorial decision, but charged Hearn anyway.
Burgum is not going to take the fall for Pirro’s stupid decisions.
So now, it’s no longer Norm Eisen’s word against Pirro’s, without grand jury transcripts to prove he was right. Now Eisen has a dispute among Trump’s top aides. Eisen has a cabinet member’s claims.
Which (if Hearn qualifies for legal fees under the Hyde Act, which might be limited if Democracy Defenders paid for his legal expenses) may start Hearn down the same path the Broadview 6 defendants are attempting to go: legal fees, sanctions, even a Special Counsel. He may not get there — it is still exceedingly difficult to get any of these things. But Doug Burgum just gave him an opening to try.
Before Trump and Burgum opened their yaps, Eisen was asking for an apology.
Afterwards, Eisen had this to say:
Trump and Burgum are attacking Pirro because she admitted what we established in our legal filings all along: Trump’s botched renovation was responsible for the damage–not Davey Hearn. However, Pirro’s claim that she and her office were previously duped by Interior is nonsense. Starting immediately after arraignment, our motions repeatedly proved that the administration was to blame for the Reflecting Pool failures, not Davey. This is far from over, as we consider all legal remedies.
This is far from over, Eisen said after Burgum thought he could help his Narcissistic boss by reinforcing his lies.
The post Doug Burgum Accuses Jeanine Pirro of Lying appeared first on emptywheel.