President Donald Trump's top prosecutor in Washington, D.C., abruptly dropped vandalism charges against an Olympic athlete, and CNN's Elie Honig provided some insight into her surprising reversal.
The president expressed extreme displeasure with U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro after she ended the prosecution of former slalom canoeist David Hearn over damage caused to the Reflecting Pool, which her office said was caused by botched renovations rather than vandals.
"So the first thing that someone in David Hearn's position," Honig told "CNN News Central, "is going to do is look to formally get this thing dismissed, and they're going to ask to dismiss it with prejudice, meaning you did something wrong, prosecution, and you cannot bring it back to life."
Federal prosecutors accused employees of the Interior Department of misleading them about what caused the damage, and Honig said Hearn has a strong case to sue the federal government.
"Whether it's dismissed with or without prejudice, the defendant, the former defendant, can absolutely bring a claim under what's called the Federal Tort Claims Act," he said. "We've sort of focused so much on this [$1.8 billion] slush fund, but the reality is, even without the slush fund, people who have been wronged by the federal government can put in legal claims and get paid."
"Here you have a guy who was indicted, who was dragged through the limelight by prosecutors, and now they say, we never had the evidence," Honig added. "He's got a very strong claim, if and when he makes that claim."
Honig said other Trump targets could make similar claims against the Department of Justice.
"Since almost the beginning of this administration, it's been remarkable to me that so much focus has been on the slush fund, as it should, and the Epstein files, as it should, but almost none on this weaponization," Honig said. "This guy is not the first. There's a long and growing list of people who have been prosecuted largely for political purposes, and in those cases have all collapsed. That's all on [acting attorney general Todd] Blanche, but none of it seems to have stuck to him."
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