President Donald Trump offered the latest update on the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool on Sunday afternoon, saying “it will reopen shortly” and that security cameras have been installed.The announcement comes after Trump’s insistence last week that U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro “choked” for dismissing the indictment of former Olympian David Hearn, who was accused of vandalizing the landmark. Last Thursday, a Washington judge dismissed the felony vandalism charges against Hearn after Pirro moved to dismiss them and said the damage was the “result of flawed installation by the contractor.”
Trump said in the Truth Social announcement that a long-serving National Park Service employee had seen Hearn “‘violently’ ripping and tugging at the Pool’s somewhat delicate coating,” but also admitted that “as with many jobs, there was also some contractor error done by rushing the job for a July 4th opening.” The employee provided “witness testimony to the U.S. attorney’s office in early July,” Trump said, with an accompanying screenshot of the document attached to the post. Pirro’s office faulted the contractor for “rushing” the project and also said the Department of Interior did not initially provide sufficient information.
