Donald Trump’s administration has issued new citations and arrests as the president frantically attempts to shift the blame for his disastrous renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Trump, 80, spent the weekend pushing the bizarre theory that vandals were to blame for the slimy green algae and peeling blue paint that have plagued one of Washington, D.C.,’s iconic landmarks since the president launched his hasty $14.7 million makeover.
At least 11 people have now been arrested or cited for allegedly vandalizing the Reflecting Pool, including a former Olympian who was arrested Friday after he reached down to touch a “loose flap of coating” out of curiosity, The Washington Post reported.
Officers from the Park Police, U.S. Marshals, and various sheriff’s departments spent Father’s Day weekend patrolling near the pool on foot and on horseback.
As of Saturday night, five people had been arrested and accused of vandalism, and five others had been issued federal citations, an administration official told the Post.
One of the newspaper’s reporters saw a U.S. marshal detain a woman for taking a piece of floating paint out of the pool, which the marshal claimed was vandalism. The woman replied that she had pulled the paint out of the pool thinking it was litter.
A Post reporter also watched a Park Police officer issue another citation on Sunday to a man who had allegedly pulled something off the water.
“You’re not going to jail today because you seem cooperative,” the officer told the man, who was visiting the park with his family, the Post reported.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Park Police for comment.
Legal experts suggested the vandalism charges could be difficult to prove, because prosecutors must show that the property was damaged by the people touching the paint, and that the damage was done willfully.
George Washington University Law professor Sara Bronin also said law enforcement could not detain people just for touching the water, because the pool is part of the public infrastructure of the National Mall and is therefore meant to be “engaged, felt, and experienced.”
But that didn’t stop Trump’s top prosecutor in Washington, D.C., from telling Fox News on Sunday that the people cited over the weekend would be “prosecuted to the full extent” of the law.
“Make no mistake, making D.C. beautiful is a priority, and if you damage, vandalize, or do anything to impact something like the reflecting pool, you can be prosecuted,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said.
Before the renovation, Trump had bragged for months about repainting the massive pool on the National Mall his hand-selected shade of “American flag blue,” but less than 24 hours after the project was completed, the pool turned green with algae.
Soon after, the blue finish began flaking off and floating to the surface, despite the fact that the firm overseeing the renovation had been paid about $14 million—more than seven times Trump’s original estimate of $1.8 million.
The government bypassed its usual competitive bidding process and awarded no-bid contracts—one of which went to a firm owned by a two-time felon—saying the work was urgent because it needed to be done in time for America’s 250th birthday celebrations.
Workers have tried to vacuum out the algae and have poured gallons of hydrogen peroxide into the pool to try to kill the sickly green bloom.
A dead baby duckling was discovered floating in the pool on Sunday, though it wasn’t immediately clear what caused its death.
The president has claimed repeatedly that the Reflecting Pool was “seriously vandalized” by “SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE.”
“The United States Park Police have arrested multiple individuals for vandalizing our Nations magnificent Reflecting Pool,” he wrote Saturday night in a Truth Social. “Who would do such a thing? These are very serious crimes having to do with the destruction of National Monuments. Years in jail! Work will begin immediately on its repair.”
A follow-up post claimed that vandals “took some form of knife or blade, and put a 250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work, competence, and money to build and complete. They also poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool.”
An administration official told the Post that a police report had been filed relating to the supposed 250-foot gash, but the newspaper’s reporters on the scene could not find any marks matching that description.
At least eight officers patrolling the site were asked about the gash but could not identify it, the Post added.
