Quick background, because you'll need it for the punchline: on Friday the Justice Department dropped its felony vandalism case against David Hearn, the former Olympic canoeist accused of ripping up the liner of Trump's $14 million Reflecting Pool makeover. The government's own filing now says the damage was "the result of flawed installation by the contractor" and a rush to finish before the America 250 celebrations. Not vandals. The contractor. * CNN headlined the collapse like a collapse: "Justice Dept. admits Reflecting Pool renovation was 'hasty and botched,' drops case against former Olympian." The Washington Post went further and named the awkward part: "DOJ drops Reflecting Pool charge, citing 'botched' work and contradicting Trump." Prosecution falls apart, filing contradicts the president — that's the story. * Fox covered it too. Headline: "Prosecutors move to dismiss felony vandalism case against Olympian David Hearn over Reflecting Pool." Perfectly accurate. Filed at 6:20pm on a Friday. In the sports section, under a sports byline. Because when you think "federal prosecutors admit a presidential pet project was a botched rush job," you think: canoeing news. * Now rewind six weeks, to when Hearn was the villain. Back then, Fox's politics desk ran: "Olympic canoeist charged in Reflecting Pool vandalism tied to ActBlue" — yes, ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform, promoted right into the headline of a story about a man touching a pool liner. Fox also passed along "Trump says White House searching for 'vandal proof' material after alleged Reflecting Pool attack," while Trump himself was calling the accused "sick, deranged" and posting that "The Scum in Court will hopefully be prosecuted to the MAX." * So the same man was a politics story on his way into the courthouse and a sports story on his way out. That's like accusing your neighbor of keying your car in front of the whole barbecue, then delivering the apology by voicemail. At dinnertime. On a Friday. * And check who plays the villain in Fox's version of the ending: the Interior Department, which supposedly fed prosecutors "barebones" reports. The headline and subhead relay the death of a prosecution over the president's own renovation without finding room for the president. Meanwhile the actual filing notes damage "even in the middle of the pool, where a vandal would not likely attempt to peel the lining" — the kind of detail that ends an argument. * Every outlet eventually printed the correction. The difference is real estate. One desk put the accusation on the politics page in June, and the exoneration next to the box scores six weeks later. Readers who only visit one of those pages are still living in June.