The “radical vandals” President Donald Trump blamed for ruining the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool have turned out not to be the culprits after all.
The president repeatedly accused unknown “thugs” of slicing into the landmark after its multimillion-dollar renovation, but his own Justice Department now says the damage was caused by contractor error.
The admission came in a filing Friday seeking to dismiss charges against Olympic canoeist David Hearn, 67, whom Trump’s prosecutors had accused of damaging the pool.
The office of Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro acknowledged that the sheets of floating paint that appeared after the renovation were caused by a “flawed installation by the contractors.”
The filing also blamed the Department of the Interior for “failing to fully and accurately provide” that information to Pirro’s prosecutors before they charged Hearn with property destruction.
The filing recounted that Justice Department officials “first became aware” of information revealing that the damage was the “result of a botched installation and not vandalism” after reviewing additional documents.
“Had [the Interior Department] been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment” against Hearn, the filing said.
An angry Trump made repeated claims about vandals cutting a slit of up to 350 feet into the Reflecting Pool (which he later amended to 300 yards, or 900 feet, of damage)—saying at various times the unknown culprits used a knife, a box cutter, and a razor. He described the purported wrongdoers as “sick” and “terrible.”
Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the contractor blamed for the problems, was awarded a no-bid contract for the renovation after Trump said he had used the company before for work at one of his golf resorts.
Trump initially estimated the project—to transform the water to “American Flag Blue”—would cost no more than $1.8 million. The final bill has since soared past $14 million and is still climbing, while the pool’s once-blue bottom has returned to gray.
“Almost immediately after” the work on the pool was completed, peeling paint “was observed along the pool perimeter,” according to the filing by Pirro’s office. A report by a National Park Service engineer in early June concluded that the problem was due to contractor error via paint “overspray,” according to the document.
Hearn pleaded not guilty after he was charged with destruction of property and accused of causing more than $1,000 in damage to the pool. He said he simply touched a sheet of paint floating in the water.
After the Reflecting Pool was drained to fix the damage, it was clear there were no slice marks that the president claimed existed. But there were multiple tire-track impressions left from Trump’s motorcade when he arranged for it to drive down the empty waterway to inspect it.
Trump hasn’t retracted his attacks on “vandals,” nor has he reacted to Friday’s court filing. The White House did not immediately return the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Pirro’s office has said the filing “speaks for itself.”
Hearn’s lawyers said Pirro never had a case and that the general threat to justice continues in the Trump administration.
“The Trump administration’s case against Davey Hearn should have never been brought,” said Norm Eisen of Democracy Defenders Fund, Mary Dohrmann of the Washington Litigation Group, and Steve Levin of Steptoe LLP. “Its dismissal does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong.”
