CBS Tried to Trash Trump Again, Now They're Facing Another Multimillion Suit, This Time from a 15-Year-Old They Trashed
In what appears to have been an attempt made over the summer to impugn President Donald Trump, CBS News published bad information that’s now poised to potentially cost it $20 million in damages.
While covering the vandalism occurring at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool over the summer, CBS News identified a detained 15-year-old Maryland teenager known as simply “JV” as one of the culprits.
But according to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, “JV” was not, in fact, responsible for any vandalism.
“He was not arrested for vandalizing it,” the lawsuit states, as reported by Fox News. “He was not accused by law enforcement of vandalizing it.”
According to The Desk, the media-focused news site that first reported the lawsuit story, “JV” was riding an electric dirt bike near the pool on June 20 when he was briefly detained and handcuffed but soon after released without charges.
Despite “JV” being released without charges, CBS News ran a report the following day showing “JV” alongside the actual vandals, according to the lawsuit.
“CBS News broadcast and published a story to a national audience that placed JV’s image alongside the assertion that five people had been arrested for vandalizing and ‘sabotaging’ the Reflecting Pool, thereby falsely portraying JV as one of the perpetrators of a highly publicized federal crime,” the suit states,
The lawsuit continues by referring to the accusation as “particularly damaging” in part because of President Donald Trump’s fury over the pool being vandalized.
“The accusation was particularly damaging because at all times material to the allegations, the Reflecting Pool renovation and subsequent alleged vandalism of the Reflecting Pool is or has been the subject of intense national attention and political controversy,” the suit reads.
“President Donald Trump frequently discusses the Reflecting Pool renovation and publicly condemned those accused of vandalism in extraordinarily harsh terms, stating that they should be ‘prosecuted to the max,'” it continues.
A few days before the incident occurred, the angry president took to Truth Social with that exact message:
🚨 NOW: President Trump says he now has to find a “VANDAL PROOF MATERIAL” for the Lincoln Reflecting Pool because so many leftists tried damaging it
Former Olympian David Hearn now faces possible PRISON TIME for doing this
The party of traitors…
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 17, 2026
“JV is not an animal, deranged vandal or scum,” the suit continues, referring to words used by the president (in other Truth Social posts) to describe the vandals. “He is a normal 15-year-old high school student who was dragged into this horrific spotlight by the reckless reporting of CBS.”
As a result of these combined factors, “JV” allegedly suffered “extreme embarrassment, humiliation, and … public condemnation.”
A number of critics contend that CBS News only went after “JV” in an attempt to portray President Trump as an authoritarian who arrests children.
The network and Trump certainly have a history. In the immediate aftermath of the July 2024 attempted assassination on then-candidate Trump, a CBS report highlighted the fury of Trump supporters, and CBS personality Margaret Brennan suggesting that Republican outrage would be to blame for “further political violence.”
In effect, Trump and his supporters were somehow being painted as the villains in the story.
In October of that year, Trump filed a $20 billion lawsuit against CBS after the network’s notorious editing of an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris that Trump declared was intended to make benefit the Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign. (The lawsuit was eventually settled with CBS agreeing to pay $16 million that will benefit the Trump library fund.)
The lawsuit filed Wednesday notes that while the original CBS News broadcast showed “JV” from behind, other versions of its report that made it onto the network’s website and its social media accounts showed his full face.
“The visual and verbal presentation published by Defendants unmistakably conveyed the false message that JV was among the persons arrested for vandalizing the Reflecting Pool and further confused JV with [David] Hearn, an adult who was subsequently indicted on a felony charge arising from the vandalism,” the suit reads.
(Hearn is an alleged Reflecting Pool vandal who was eventually indicted by the Trump administration. However, Hearn’s case was eventually dismissed after Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host who now serves as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, blamed the Department of the Interior for failing to reveal information regarding “flawed installation by the contractor.”)
The suit also alleges that CBS News went after “JV” either knowing that its reporting was false or “with reckless disregard” for the truth.
CBS News did eventually remove its social media reports by Aug. 6, according to The Desk. But the network didn’t issue an official retraction until Aug. 16.
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