(CNN) — President Donald Trump is considering removing Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, over a Justice Department conclusion that problems with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool stemmed from a flawed renovation rather than vandalism, two people familiar with his thinking told CNN.
The president is “furious” with Pirro, one of the sources said, telling CNN that he fumed about her all weekend. They added that based on his criticisms of her, they find it “highly likely she’s removed from her job.”
The other source, a senior administration official, said Trump was “blindsided” by Pirro’s court filing: “The president did not know beforehand that she was going to do that.”
CNN has reached out to Pirro’s office and the Justice Department for comment. The White House directed CNN to the president’s prior comments on the filing and did not comment on the substance of the reporting.
“Frankly, I think she choked, because the judge was really vicious. Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department, and I guess she choked,” Trump said during an unrelated Oval Office event Monday.
“I was disappointed in Jeanine Pirro. Really disappointed in Jeanine Pirro,” he added. “She folded like an umbrella.”
The Justice Department acknowledged in a court filing on Friday that the president’s $14 million renovation of the Reflecting Pool was “hasty and botched” and said it was dropping the criminal case against former Olympian David Hearn, who was accused of vandalizing the landmark. Hearn previously pleaded not guilty to the felony charge in DC’s Superior Court.
Trump and Pirro, a former Fox News host and longtime ally of the president, spoke by phone on Saturday about the court filing. Their conversation “wasn’t pretty,” said one of the sources, who was read out on the call.
Pirro told Trump it was the career officials in her office that were responsible for the filing, another source said. A longtime prosecutor who oversees prosecutions in DC Superior Court signed the court filing asking to dismiss the case on Friday.
In addition to the Saturday call, Pirro has spoken with Trump multiple times about the situation.
Trump on Saturday publicly criticized the move, posting to Truth Social: “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? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM.”
Pirro argued in her filing that the Department of Interior, led by Secretary Doug Burgum, “provided less than fulsome information at the outset of this case.”
“Had DOI been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment,” it read.
Despite those accusations, the president is not angry with Burgum, the sources said, and he continues to believe that vandals are responsible for the damage to the Reflecting Pool. Burgum dismissed Pirro’s argument in a social media post on Saturday, saying, “The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool.”
However, internal communications CNN received through FOIA requests between the National Park Service — which oversaw the project under the Department of Interior — and DC Water from March through last month make no mention of any vandalism as the department was planning to drain the pool.
Trump had said the pool would need to be drained to make repairs caused by the alleged vandalism — yet an email from NPS acknowledged as early as July 1 that the pool would need to be drained due to algae. The agency also weighed whether to dye the pool water; in the past, the water has been dyed black to help reflect better.
Hearn has legal options that could unearth more embarrassing details on how his case was handled. The judge hasn’t officially dismissed Hearn’s charges as of Monday afternoon, and his lawyers are expected to file a response to Pirro’s request to dismiss the case this week.
“Nothing is off the table,” said Michael R. Bromwich, an attorney representing Hearn.
Among his options: referring the prosecutors involved to a bar disciplinary authority; asking inspectors general to look at the conduct of the Justice Department and Interior Department; filing lawsuits; seeking more of the grand jury record documenting the prosecutors’ presentation of the indictment; and asking the judge to dismiss the case so it cannot be brought again. Pirro’s office has so far sought only to dismiss Hearn’s charge without prejudice, meaning prosecutors wouldn’t be barred from attempting to revive the case later.
This story has been updated with additional context and reporting.
The-CNN-Wire
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