Donald Trump’s disastrous makeover of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is weathering yet another blow.
The peeling of the lining on the iconic Washington fixture was not the work of vandals, as Trump has claimed, but rather the result of a botched repair job, several experts have told The Washington Post.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced Thursday that the National Park Service was once again emptying the pool after large sections of the newly coated surface began peeling away.
The president has blamed “SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE” who, he claims, slashed the pool with blades. The president, 80, conveniently omitted that he had previously boasted that the pool’s lining was knife-proof.
Trump has also continually increased the size of the alleged gashes—from 250 feet to 350 feet and, most recently, “300 yards long,” or 900 feet.
Four experts in waterproofing materials told the Post that the peeling “strongly suggested errors in the application process.” Trump and his team, however, appear to be sticking to their story.
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers rejected the Post’s findings.
“There were no missteps during the initial repairs to the pool,” Rogers told the Post. “Unfortunately, deranged individuals made several gashes in the side of the pool and destroyed over 300 feet of the pool’s siding. Once the necessary repairs to fix the vandalism are complete, the Reflecting Pool will be restored to all its glory.”
The White House did not respond to an email seeking additional comment from the Daily Beast.
The Post’s report comes a day after The New York Times revealed that an FBI evidence-gathering team was at the freshly emptied pool on Wednesday afternoon. The FBI appeared to be using laser-scanning and measuring equipment to document the scene.
An FBI spokesperson told The Daily Beast, “The FBI Washington Field Office Evidence Response Team is assisting the U.S. Park Police in its investigation of damage to the Reflecting Pool.”
For such a shoddy job, the vanity project sure was expensive. Initially estimated to cost $1.8 million, the refurbishment is now expected to total at least $14.7 million. The no-bid contract was awarded to a Virginia company that had previously worked on a swimming pool at one of Trump’s golf clubs.
This is far from the first controversy to haunt Trump’s vanity project.
Shortly after he spent more than $16 million transforming the iconic water feature to his liking—personally selecting “American flag blue” for the pool lining—algal blooms turned the water a slimy green. Then, ducks were found dead nearby after chemicals were dumped into the pool to treat the algae. The entire pool, which was supposed to be finished by the Fourth of July, has been fenced off and closed to the public for weeks.
