Trump administration admits Reflecting Pool was a ‘botched job’ all along

Washington: The Trump administration has admitted that the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was the result of a botched installation by President Donald Trump’s contractor – not vandalism as repeatedly claimed by Trump and his team.In a Friday afternoon court filing, US time, Trump’s handpicked federal prosecutor in Washington, Jeanine Pirro, moved to dismiss criminal charges against former Olympic athlete David Hearn, whom the administration wrongly accused of vandalising the memorial.The Reflecting Pool has now been drained. For the first time, the Trump administration admitted the damage was caused by a botched installation.AP Photo/Rahmat GulShe said it was not until after the return of the indictment that the Department of the Interior provided additional documents to her office “indicating that the damage … was the result of flawed installation by the contractor”, Atlantic Industrial Coatings.Also contributing to the damage was “the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026”, Pirro said.Atlantic Industrial Coatings received a no-bid government contract to renovate the pool and turn the water “American flag blue” after having worked on a swimming pool at Trump’s golf club in Virginia. It had not previously been awarded a federal contract.When the pool was then besieged by an algae bloom, and the newly installed liner on the pool’s base began to peel off, Trump blamed it on vandalism. Without evidence, he accused left-wing vandals of cutting a 300-metre-long gash down the middle of the floor.Trump repeatedly blamed vandals for the damage without evidence, alleging they had cut the flooring with a box cutter.AP Photo/Allison RobbertBut in court on Friday, Pirro admitted: “The damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by the Department of the Interior.”The new documents “significantly undermine the evidentiary basis for the indictment”, she added.In the filing, Pirro says an expert inspected the Reflecting Pool on July 17, after it was drained for a second time, along with Pirro and senior employees from the district attorney’s office.They “immediately noted extensive damage throughout the now-drained pool” and requested all documents from DOI, which furnished them with 695 megabytes of additional records.“These documents 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. This was the first time that DOI made [the attorney’s office] aware of such information.”More to comeMichael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.From our partners