Donald Trump’s self-proclaimed dealmaking instincts may be due for a tune-up.
The contractor hired for Trump’s makeover of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is charging the government a jaw-dropping profit margin, The New York Times reports.
The 79-year-old president initially estimated that the pool renovations would take just one to two weeks and cost $1.8 million. But the project has since dragged on for more than four weeks, and it emerged earlier this month that the firm handling the work is being paid $13.1 million—more than seven times Trump’s original estimate.
Now, federal documents obtained by the Times have revealed that the Virginia-based firm, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, is charging the government a whopping 20 percent for profit—even though similar federal construction contracts typically come with profit margins between 6 and 12 percent.
That translates into at least $850,000 in extra costs compared with what a more typical contract would have run.
In addition to the 20 percent profit margin, Atlantic Industrial Coatings also asked for 20 percent for “overhead” when it submitted its bid for the project.
Despite the extraordinarily steep costs, the federal government approved the contract, sidestepping requirements to consider competing offers.
In an analysis of the contract, a National Park Service contracting specialist wrote that the combined total of profit and overhead “appears excessive,” noting that other contractors typically charged 10 to 15 percent for overhead, according to the Times.
But by the time the cost analysis was completed, Atlantic Industrial Coatings had been working at the more than 2,000-foot pool for more than a month under a rarely used mechanism that allows contractors to begin work before costs are fully negotiated, according to the Times.
The Interior Department, under which the National Park Service falls, defended the contract’s cost, saying it was needed to speed up the project so it could be finished in time for the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations.
“The contract price reflects the effort necessary to expedite the timeline of completing the leak prevention coating project—more people, more materials, more equipment and longer hours ahead of our 250th,” a spokesperson for the department told the Daily Beast in a statement.
But John Hart, the chief executive of the conservative watchdog group Open the Books, told the Times, “We’ve known that this is going to be America’s 250th anniversary for 250 years. It’s not like we didn’t have time to plan.”
The Interior Department spokesperson also claimed that Atlantic Industrial Coatings was “the only company that had the expertise, staff, and materials necessary to complete the project in time for major celebrations ahead of our 250th,” even though the government did not solicit other bids.
Atlantic Industrial Coatings did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump told reporters in late April that he had chosen the firm himself because it had worked on the swimming pool at his Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, saying, “I have a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools.”
He later walked his claim back, writing on Truth Social, “I didn’t give out the contract, ‘Interior’ did, to a contractor I did not know, and have never used before.”
Despite the cost, Trump’s pet project is not going smoothly, according to National Park Service documents obtained by the Times. The contractor failed in two attempts earlier this month to seal the gaps between the concrete slabs on the pool’s floor that were leaking water. The Interior Department did not comment on whether a fix has been found.
When reached for comment, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told the Daily Beast in a statement:
“After decades of neglect and botched repairs, we finally have a President who is using his world-class business experience to beautify one of the crown jewels of our nation’s capital, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Only the failing New York Times would continuously attempt to undermine President Trump’s unifying and popular beautification efforts ahead of America’s 250th celebrations. President Trump is delivering on his promise to make Washington, D.C. Safe and Beautiful Again, and there is nothing the New York Times’ political narratives can do to discredit it.”
