Trump rejects his own Justice Department's findings on Lincoln pool damage: ‘I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro’
US President Donald Trump criticised longtime ally Jeanine Pirro on Saturday after she agreed to drop a case against a former Olympic canoeist who was
US President Donald Trump criticised longtime ally Jeanine Pirro on Saturday after she agreed to drop a case against a former Olympic canoeist who was accused of vandalising the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Trump said he disagrees with findings by his own Department of Justice attributing the peeling lining of the newly refurbished Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC, to faulty installation rather than acts of vandalism. "I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool," Trump posted on Truth Social. “To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM, that included the grass, which had a big 86 47 emblazoned in giant letters on it, and other elements of the surrounding area. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!,” Trump said. In a subsequent update, Trump attached previously circulated US Park Police footage, claiming it depicted individuals vandalising the pool while maintenance crews removed algae. He shared the video to claim, “Look for yourselves at the VANDALISM that took place at The Reflecting Pool. The material is being cut with a knife or a box cutter, for all to see!” The case of Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool The President's pushback came a day after the Department of Justice conceded in a legal submission that the $14 million refurbishment of the landmark was “hasty and botched.” The department confirmed it was dropping criminal proceedings against former US Olympic canoeist David Hearn, CNN reported.
Hearn had previously been accused of vandalising the site. According to CNN, two other individuals among the three swept up in the administration's broader push against alleged pool vandals have also had misdemeanour charges dropped by federal prosecutors, citing court records and defence counsel. Despite the prosecutor's filing, Trump argued that the government was minimising the role of deliberate damage. "There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!" Trump wrote on Saturday. Trump ordered the high-priced renovations to the landmark in May, including applying a bright blue coating to the pool bed in time for Independence Day celebrations, as part of a broader series of aesthetic modifications across Washington monuments that drew widespread scrutiny, CNN reported. However, in an unusually detailed submission addressing the poor workmanship, Pirro's office assigned responsibility directly to other federal entities, including the Department of the Interior (DOI). "The damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by DOI," prosecutors noted in Hearn's case filing on Friday. "A recent visual inspection showed damage throughout the Reflecting Pool, even in the middle of the pool, where a vandal would not likely attempt to peel the lining," the filing stated. "Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt," it added. Without presenting supporting evidence, Trump has repeatedly alleged that "sick, deranged" criminals ruined the site and asserted they deserved "years in jail." "The Scum in Court will hopefully be prosecuted to the MAX," Trump posted on July 17, labelling the accused "animals." His descriptions of the destruction escalated from a "250 foot long gash" in June to 300-yard-long "slashes" by July.
The BriefWire