President Donald Trump laid into US Attorney Jeanine Pirro at a White House meeting Monday evening over a court filing that blamed the Reflecting Pool damage on shoddy workmanship rather than vandalism, according to two people familiar with the intense discussion.
The seemingly botched Reflecting Pool renovation and subsequent vandalism charges have created a deep divide between Pirro and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who was also at the meeting, according to people familiar with the dynamic. While Trump has privately lambasted Pirro, he stopped short of firing her or asking for her resignation on Monday, sources told CNN.
The DC US Attorney’s Office late last week decided to drop the case that accused an ex-Olympian of ripping up some of the pool lining, with Pirro’s prosecutors saying in court they believed they had been misled by the Interior Department until recent days, when Burgum’s staff finally turned over records showing the pool had significant damage long before Olympic canoeist David Hearn visited the pool, according to court records.
Privately, Pirro has blasted Burgum’s staff to senior aides in the West Wing, and put the blame squarely on Interior for failing to arm her with the evidence — before she presented the case — that exposed the case wasn’t prosecutable, according to the people familiar with the matter. Pirro arrived at the White House with boxes of evidence to back up her claims that the damage at the reflecting pool was caused by shoddy workmanship, not vandalism, according to another person with knowledge of the meeting.
