Willful blindness in the reflecting pool cases

At some point, there will be a reckoning. 

The reckoning may be a public one:  Lawyers hauled before the D.C. bar to face potential disciplinary proceedings.

It may also be a purely private reckoning.  It may be looking into the mirror and asking oneself the question:  Am I proud of how I acted during this time?

*****

On June 20, 2026, Sophie Dennison visited the reflecting pool by the Lincoln Memorial.  

You know the location:  It was looking out over this water from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.  It is also where Forrest Gump‘s girlfriend jumped into the water to get his attention during the anti-Vietnam War rally in that movie.

Dr. Dennison was there as a tourist.  At the same time, as a veterinarian, she could not ignore the danger posed to wildlife posed by pieces of garbage floating in the water.

Dr. Dennison picked up plastic wrappers and other pieces of trash and put them into her purse to throw away later.  Included among the trash were two small pieces of the plastic liner that had become detached from the bottom of the pool and were floating on the surface.

The second piece of the blue lining was still in her hand when she was approached by Officer Allen of the Montana Department of Corrections.

Officer Allen asked her if she had just put her hand in the water.  When Dr. Dennison admitted that she had, he told her he was sorry.  He would now have to arrest her.

Other law enforcement officers arrived within moments of this exchange.  By the time Dr. Dennison was loaded into a Park Police transport van, this middle-aged mother had been surrounded by no fewer than 15 law enforcement officers.

Dr. Dennison was humiliated to be handcuffed and patted down in such a public fashion.  She was then petrified to read days later that the President of the United States — the most powerful person in the world — had singled her out, along with the handful of other defendants, as a “sick person” who should face serious jail time.

*****

Everything that happened that day was witnessed by a family who had been interacting with Dr. Dennison before Officer Allen approached her.  Most of it was captured by a recording the father of the family made on his smart phone.  

The father also snapped photos of the water near the edge of the pool where Dr. Dennison had been sitting.  The water was opaque.  There was no way Officer Allen could have seen the movements of her hand beneath the surface.  And the body-worn camera recordings turned over by the government show that she did not have a knife, box cutter or any other tool to cut the lining.  

Law enforcement officers will typically interview witnesses and gather video recordings and any other evidence that might be used in the prosecution of the case.  In this case, there were eyewitnesses who were actively offering Officer Allen this very evidence.  

Neither Officer Allen, nor any of the other 14 law enforcement officials hanging around after her arrest, had any interest in this evidence.  And that was because this evidence did not fit the narrative the Trump Administration was pushing.  

*****

In the end, Dr. Dennison was victimized multiple times.  She was victimized when she was arrested for a crime she had not committed.  She was victimized again when the U.S. Attorney’s Office decided to formally charge her with the criminal offense of destruction of property.  She was victimized when was singled out by President Trump, along with the other defendants, for serious jail time. Finally, Dr. Dennison was victimized by the prosecutors who handled her case.

In the old days, whenever I came into possession of exculpatory evidence in a case, the first thing I would do would be to alert the prosecutors.  It was in no one’s interest for me to sit on this evidence to surprise the government at trial.  It made far more sense to have the case dismissed immediately.  

You could trust the Assistant U.S. Attorneys back then to do the right thing.  The prosecutor would thank me for it.  The prosecutor would then dismiss all charges.

Those were the old days.

In this case, I could not get the line prosecutor to return my phone calls.  When I finally reached the prosecutor’s supervisors, I was surprised to learn they had no interest in discussing the exculpatory evidence.

The sole purpose of the call, it turns out, was to scold me for the 7 unreturned phone calls I had made to the prosecutor.

This was willful blindness. 

Think about this:  My client had been subjected to the humiliation of a public arrest for a crime we all know she did not commit.  She had been threatened by the President of the United States.  And the supervisors wanted me to apologize for having harassed their poor, overworked employee.

As Adam Schiff stated during his “whatever happened to Todd Blanche” speech last month, “people compromise themselves little by little, and then a lot by a lot.”

Despite the Administration’s malfeasance, in the end Dr. Dennison is not a victim at all.  She has asked me to speak out about this case so that others can be aware of what is going on in our nation’s Capitol.  She is a hero.