UNMASKED

Felon Trump Pal Behind Green Slime Fiasco Exposed

Questions are swirling about the process behind the award of a $1.7 million contract to a longtime Trump donor.

The man whose subsidiary company was awarded a no-bid contract to remodel the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has been unmasked as a two-time felon and deep-pocketed MAGA donor.

A company owned by John J. Cafaro, whom President Donald Trump has called a “fantastic man” despite a pair of politics-related felonies, installed a water-purification system to prevent algae bloom in the pool—an installation that so far appears to be failing miserably.

Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief Hugh Dougherty and Chief Content Officer Joanna Coles broke down all the questions surrounding Cafaro and his relationship to Trump on The Daily Beast Podcast.

“How could he possibly get into this?” Dougherty asked. “We don’t really know, because it is a no-bid contract that is shrouded in secrecy.”

Dougherty, who notes that some are comparing a photo of a cigar-smoking Cafaro to “Fat Tony” from The Simpsons, rattled off what we do know about the businessman’s relationship with Trump.

Cafaro is a longtime Trump donor with a mansion in Palm Beach, near the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate. He has been praised by Trump (he called him a “fantastic man” in 2016) despite spending time in jail for making an undisclosed $10,000 “loan” to his daughter, Capri Cafaro, during her unsuccessful run for Congress in Ohio.

Cafaro spent five days in the hoosegow in 2010 over a judge’s dissatisfaction with his financial disclosures. He was ultimately released and sentenced to probation and a $250,000 fine.

Dougherty’s comments follow revelations in The New York Times that Cafaro, who also once pleaded guilty to a felony charge of conspiring to bribe a congressman, has donated $350,000 to PACs supporting Trump since 2016.

Cafaro’s company, Greenwater Services, was awarded a $1.7 million contract for the reflecting pool gig by the Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service.

DERANGED

Trump Unravels Into AI Fantasy After Reflecting Pool Fiasco

Josh Fiallo

The contract did not have to go through a typical government bidding process because the Trump administration deemed it a priority, allowing the president to have his “American flag blue” reflecting pool installed in time for the America 250 celebrations.

Reached for comment, the White House claimed there was no favoritism in the administration’s selection of a company that has ties to a longtime donor.

“This contract was awarded by the Department of [the] Interior; the White House did not play any role in the selection process,” spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told the Daily Beast. “The failing New York Times’ continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and further reinforce the public’s distrust in the news media, which is already at an all-time low.”

Beyond questions about the nature of the contract are criticisms that Trump may have blown through $14 million in taxpayer dollars—more than seven times the amount initially proposed—to repaint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, only for it to fill with green sludge two weeks before America’s 250th birthday.

The pool holds about 6.5 million gallons of water, and has a surface area of more than 300,000 square feet. On Thursday, around half of the surface water remained green.

Now, Park Service employees are resorting to pouring hydrogen peroxide into the pool in an attempt to kill off the algae.

Coles asked Dougherty if there was any chance the pool would be glistening blue in time for the July 4 celebrations.

“Anything’s possible,” he said, before noting that things still appear to be moving in the wrong direction, as The Washington Post reported that satellite imagery shows there is more algae in the pool this month than in any of the last five Junes.

“So can it be fixed? Maybe,” Dougherty said. “I’m not sure that the individual gallon bottles of unbranded bleach are the way. And as you see, the clock is ticking to July 4... It doesn’t look like it. [The algae] seems to be going up, not down.”

New episodes of The Daily Beast Podcast are released every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday on YouTube, and on other podcast platforms the next morning. Follow our new feed on your favorite podcast platform at beast.pub/dailybeastpod and subscribe on YouTube to watch full episodes.

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Josh FialloBreaking News Reporter

The Daily Beast PodcastPodcast

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.