The Justice Department on Friday said the rush to complete President Donald Trump’s renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool led to “hasty and botched work,” shedding new light on the problems behind the Washington landmark’s $14 million facelift.
In delivering a sharp contradiction to weeks of claims from Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that vandals destroyed the Reflecting Pool, DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro attributed the bungled installation to bad weather, testing failures and shipment setbacks.
Trump and Burgum, meanwhile, continue to blame alleged vandals for the deteriorating pool lining, algae blooms and green water that appeared after the renovation.
“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,” Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social. Burgum also dismissed the findings in a social media post, saying that “The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool.”
The new details come from the DOJ’s Friday filing announcing it was dropping the case against former Olympian David Hearn, who was accused of vandalizing the landmark.
