President Donald Trump on Saturday publicly rejected the Justice Department's recent assessment that problems with the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool stemmed from a faulty installation rather than intentional damage. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote, "I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool," and called the incident "a pure case of VANDALISM."
The Justice Department motion, filed on Friday by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Spence, asked a judge to dismiss the administration's prosecution of David Hearn, 67, a former Olympian who had been accused of vandalizing the pool. The filing said newly obtained documents from the Department of the Interior "indicated a rushed and flawed installation process, with repeated failures of the lining during the installation process, and extensive peeling of the lining throughout the Reflecting Pool."
Trump, who has faced scrutiny over the $14.7 million renovation, has repeatedly blamed vandals for the visible problems at the site. The renovated pool developed blooms of algae that tinted the water green, and sections of the blue lining were observed peeling away. After the prosecutors' filing, the president suggested that while contractors may have experienced difficulties, the primary cause remained vandalism. "There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!" he posted on Saturday.
In a follow-up social media entry, Trump embedded a previously released video from the U.S. Park Police that he said captured vandals at the pool while workers were in the water removing algae. He urged readers to "Look for yourselves at the VANDALISM that took place at The Reflecting Pool." The clip does show people at the site, but it is not clear from the footage whether they are actively vandalizing the installation or reaching into the water to remove pieces of lining that were already peeling.
Pirro's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the president's statements. The Justice Department filing noted the Interior Department's characterization of the installation as rushed and flawed and described "extensive peeling" across the pool, which influenced prosecutors' recommendation to drop the case against Hearn.
The dispute highlights a disagreement between the president and the federal prosecutors handling the matter over the origin of the pool's visible damage. The administration's initial criminal allegation that a specific individual had vandalized the site has been undercut, according to prosecutors, by internal documents pointing to installation failures.
Questions about the cause of the damage and the subsequent legal response remain active as officials and the public continue to scrutinize the renovation and the sequence of events that led to the peeling lining and algae blooms.