President Donald Trump continues to insist damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was the result of vandalism, despite a Department of Justice motion filed on July 31 that placed the blame squarely on a contractor’s “botched” installation of the pool coating “and not vandalism as initially represented” by the Department of Interior.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed vandals for damaging the new blue lining of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which is now peeling, as well as for algae in the water. But the administration has not provided evidence to back up the president’s claims. Experts say the pool’s ills have a variety of plausible explanations that do not involve intentional harm.
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool began filling with water on June 4 following maintenance work that President Donald Trump called a “big project.” Trump claimed that “the Biden administration and the Obama administration spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get it to work, and they failed.” That exaggerates the amount spent by previous administrations.