President Donald Trump is standing by his claim that vandals destroyed the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — even after federal prosecutors he appointed told a court a botched installation ruined the pool’s lining.
While campaigning Saturday for Republican candidates in Perry, Georgia, Trump told supporters his administration cleaned all the graffiti off fountains and statues in Washington, D.C., repeating claims of vandalism in the nation’s capital that have been disproven by Trump-appointed federal prosecutors.
“Even the Reflecting Pool, you hear the fake news. So much fake news. It was built in 1922, and it hasn’t worked ever,” Trump claimed. “It’s the longest swimming pool in history. It goes all the way from Lincoln to George Washington, covers the whole territory and it always leaked.”
Trump continued: “And we had tremendous vandalism. And we had it pretty well, but we’re gonna undo it anyway because we had to the pipes. We wanted to get it done for July 4 temporarily.”
“If you take a look, the water is at now 90 percent,” Trump added, noting it will take several more days to refill.
The 80-year-old president has continued to claim that politically-driven vandals were responsible for damage that was a result of the contractor he hand-picked to install a new lining at the pool last spring.
The Reflecting Pool has long been a concern for Trump, who posted updates on its condition multiple times this week alone. Trump shared a lengthy rant on Truth Social Monday saying that it was now “70 percent filled with water and looking good” before warning that anyone who damages it “will GO TO JAIL.” In an update Friday, Trump said the pool was 85 percent full and “looking really good!”
“It hasn’t worked properly since 1922, but will now. We have cameras set up to stop any potential Vandalism, including the grassed areas, which were destroyed by chemical poisoning with a large, and very inappropriate, phrase. The grass was completely replaced!” Trump said Friday.
The president has also repeatedly shared images of the monument on Truth Social, including an overhead shot of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday along with the words: “Back, and more beautiful than ever!”
Much of the grass at the National Mall, where the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is located, has needed repair in recent months as a result of damage caused by the president’s “Great American State Fair” earlier this year.
However, Trump has continued to suggest that the pool’s problems predated his renovation.
Washington, D.C. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro brought the only criminal case over the damage in July, which accused former Olympic canoeist David Hearn of “forcefully and violently” ripping out the liner. Within weeks, prosecutors dropped the charges, conceding that the “American flag blue” coating Trump requested started to peel “almost immediately” after it went on.
The Interior Department, according to prosecutors, had “provided less than fulsome information at the outset of this case,” and it was only after Hearn was indicted that the agency determined the “damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism.”