President Donald Trump’s overhaul of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool continues to make headlines for the wrong reasons, as new revelations surface about one of the contractors involved.
Trump, 80, 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.
Now, The New York Times has revealed that the firm tasked with installing the water-purification system to prevent algae bloom is owned by a long-time Trump supporter and two-time felon who pled guilty to bribing a congressman and violating campaign finance laws.
Federal contracting records show the National Park Service bypassed the government’s usual competitive-bidding process and awarded a $1.7 million no-bid contract to the Ohio-based firm Greenwater Services, the Times reported.
The company is owned by J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust led by John J. Cafaro, a Trump donor who owns a Palm Beach mansion near the president’s private Mar-a-Lago club.
Trump has described Cafaro as a “fantastic man,” the Times reported, despite his multiple run-ins with the law.
In 2002, Cafaro pled guilty to conspiracy to bribe former Democratic Rep. Jim Traficant of Ohio.
The congressman was convicted of 10 felony counts, and Cafaro—who testified on behalf of the prosecution at trial—was fined $150,000 and placed on probation, according to The Plain Dealer, the local newspaper for Cleveland, Ohio.
Two years later, in 2004, Cafaro admitted making an undisclosed $10,000 “loan” to his daughter Capri Cafaro’s unsuccessful run for Congress in violation of campaign donation limits. The loan was never repaid.
After pleading guilty, Cafaro spent five days in jail over a judge’s dissatisfaction with his financial disclosures. He was ultimately released and sentenced to probation and a $250,000 fine, the Plain Dealer reported.
Despite the lenient sentences, both charges Cafaro pled guilty to were felony counts.
The developer has supported Trump since at least 2016, when he made a $50,000 donation to a fundraising event Trump hosted that was supposed to compete with a Republican debate, the Times reported.
Since then, Cafaro—who made his fortune developing shopping malls before later branching out into other industries including aerospace—has donated more than $300,000 to political committees connected to the president.
A photograph of Cafaro has been widely shared online, inviting comparisons to Fat Tony in The Simpsons.
Spokespeople for both the White House and the Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, told the Times the White House was not involved in choosing Cafaro’s company for the Reflecting Pool job.
A spokesperson for the Interior also said the department had not been aware of Cafaro’s previous support for the president.
“This company was selected because they had the expertise, work force and materials” needed to complete the job in time, spokesperson Katie Martin said.
The company did not respond to the Times’ request for comment. The Daily Beast has also reached out.
A previous Times report revealed that David Schutzenhofer, the general manager of Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, had advised the Park Service on the project and was in contact with Greenwater Services.
Public records show several firms had expressed interest in providing the Reflecting Pool’s water purification system, but in April, the government said the situation was urgent because the work needed to be done in time for America’s 250th birthday celebrations, according to the Times.
The contract was awarded directly to Greenwater, along with another no-bid contract for more than $13 million that went to the Virginia firm Atlantic Industrial Coatings to spread blue waterproofing material on the pool’s concrete floor, which has traditionally been painted gray.
The amount awarded to Atlantic Industrial eventually increased to $14.7 million this month.
Underground pipes circulate the Reflecting Pool’s water to a nearby building containing filter and water purifiers, and for years, the Park Service had planned to upgrade the system by adding a device that killed algae with tiny bubbles of ozone gas, the Times reported.
Greenwater has brought temporary water-purification sites the pool but has yet to install the permanent system, which is expected this week, the Interior Department told the Times.
Workers have been trying to remove the Reflecting Pool’s green slime by vacuuming out the algae and adding hydrogen peroxide to the water to kill it. As of Thursday, about half of the water was still green.
