President Donald Trump returned to ranting about alleged vandals destroying the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Friday, despite the mounting evidence that the issues were caused by errors made during his renovation attempt.
Hot off his rambling primetime address about âelection integrity,â the president, 80, took to Truth Social on Friday morning to complain about the botched Reflecting Pool with further unsubstantiated claims.
âThe Reflecting Pool, so badly damaged by Deranged Vandals, has been emptied as the massive slash gets repaired,â Trump wrote. âWe got it through the great July Fourth Weekend. What kind of animals would do such a thing? We are looking for a Vandal Proof material, but such a thing should not have been necessary.â
The president went on to declare, âThe Scum in Court will hopefully be prosecuted to the MAX.â
The Reflecting Pool was fully drained this week to repair issues with the presidentâs $14 million renovation job after workers held off on the continued work until after the 4th of July.
But as the water was completely removed from the pool on the National Mall to assess and fix the damage, it revealed there was no massive gash caused by vandals, as Trump had repeatedly claimed.
The president, in recent weeks, had claimed the gash was 250 feet long, then 300 feet, before writing in a post on Truth Social this week that it was actually 300 yards long, which would be 900 feet.
Instead, the empty pool bed, which Trump had demanded be painted a shade he called âAmerican flag blueâ before it turned a bright shade of green and was plagued by algae blooms, showed peeling paint in multiple places and was no longer blue.
While the president has ranted about vandals destroying the 2,000-foot pool, only one person has been charged to date: former Olympian David Hearn, who pleaded not guilty and argued he was simply touching peeling material.
Hearnâs lawyer accused the Trump administration of trying to use his client as a scapegoat for its botched renovation project.
Reporters with The Washington Post identified seven spots in the pool where the lining had partially or entirely peeled away. Using satellite imagery, photos, and videos, their analysis found that all lining failures occurred at seams in the coating painted at different times.
When they had four experts in waterproofing materials review their findings, the experts with decades of experience said the failures âstrongly suggested errors in the application process.â
When The Washington Post took its findings to the White House, spokesperson Taylor Rogers insisted, âThere were no missteps during the initial repairs to the poolâ and repeated claims about alleged gashes.
The pool remains fenced off from the public as workers have been spotted assessing it this week.
