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President Donald Trump has nominated Dennis Kirk, a Project 2025 author and a former White House official during his first administration, to lead the Interior Department’s Inspector General's Office, just as Democrats are demanding an investigation into the flawed renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.The prospect of Kirk overseeing the review drew immediate backlash.Rep. Jared Huffman, D-California, the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, described Kirk as a “fake and fraudulent watchdog” in a statement on Aug. 5, two days before the official nomination.“Everyone should have their eyes wide open,” Huffman wrote. “Each and every thing this political puppet does will be in service of Donald Trump. It’s no surprise the White House suddenly wants its own man inside the one place that Trump's cronies still have reason to fear.”Kirk's nomination is subject to Senate approval.The move came a week after the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. dropped felony vandalism charges against former Olympic athlete David Hearn. Prosecutors pointed to Interior Department documents which they said indicated “the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism.”The Department of Justice also pointed to a “rushed” construction process that sought to “complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.”Trump, who for months had blamed vandalism for the peeling paint and the water turning green, said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro "folded like an umbrella.”"I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro," Trump wrote on social media Aug. 1, adding: "There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!"An analysis of federal contract data by USA TODAY found that 20 days before Trump first announced the project in April and its estimated $1.5 million cost, a company named Atlantic Industrial Coatings had already been contracted for nearly $6.9 million to take on the project on April 3. In addition, Green Water Solutions, an Ohio-based company, had been awarded a no-bid contract for more than $1.7 million.By June, the total project cost had crossed $16 million.Kirk, Trump’s nominee, co-authored a chapter on the federal workforce in Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint put out by the Heritage Foundation. He also served as an associate director of employee services at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.After DOJ’s verdict on the pool renovation, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, asked the Department of Interior’s Office of the Inspector General to open a probe into the issue.They demanded an investigation into “what employees of the Department of the Interior knew – and when they knew it – regarding the peeling of the coating and other engineering issues at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.”On Aug. 7, the same day Kirk was officially nominated, Trump said Pirro should “re-visit her hastily made decision,” in a Truth Social post.Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal.
