Donald Trump now claims that Democrat “thugs” sliced up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool with a sharp razor and has threatened up to 10 years’ jail for would-be saboteurs.
But despite insisting he has proof of who is to blame, federal agencies still have not produced evidence to back up the president’s ever-changing allegations.
For days, Trump has pointed reporters toward the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior for proof that saboteurs deliberately damaged the newly renovated pool.
Yet neither agency has publicly released documentation supporting his allegations that vandals caused the algae blooms and peeling blue liner plaguing the project, despite repeated requests by the Daily Beast and others.
Trump, however, floated yet another theory on Wednesday: that the damage was done by fans of Hillary Clinton-loving Democrats who entered the pool and sliced a massive gash into it with a razor.
The story was a variation of Trump’s previous explanation earlier this week: that vandals had taken to the landmark with a knife or box cutter. He also initially claimed that the gash was about 250 feet, but he now says it is 350 feet.
“Thugs,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday when asked about the pool during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
“They (authorities) just told me a little while ago. Six have been arrested, and like six or seven are under investigation. They had pictures and everything else. They went to the bottom, and it’s not a paint job, it’s very expensive, it’s not rubber - but it’s like rubber - and they went down with probably a box cutter or a very sharp razor of some kind or knife, and they cut, and then they started ripping it up.”
“You know, one of the guys, he’s a member or a big player to ActBlue,” Trump added, referencing the Democratic Party fundraising platform.
“He’s a big Hillary supporter, he’s a big supporter of Sleepy Joe Biden.”
The Daily Beast visited the pool on Wednesday but could not see a 350-foot gash while walking along the iconic landmark, which is not far from the steps where Martin Luther King Jr gave his historic “I have a Dream” speech in 1963.
But with preparations underway for America’s 250th anniversary celebrations, fresh fencing was erected around sections of the Reflecting Pool while a swathe of mobile CCTV cameras appeared across the site, adding to the already heavy security presence.
Road closures, detours and security checkpoints stretched across the area but no arrests were observed during almost an hour at the site.
One National Guard member stationed nearby said he had not personally witnessed any vandalism that day.
However, visitors John and Barbara, tourists from Minnesota, told the Daily Beast they noticed an unpleasant odor coming from the water when the wind shifted.
“There’s definitely a smell when the breeze comes across,” Barbara said.
The original renovation job was given, without a competitive tender process, to a Virginia-based company that had previously carried out work on a swimming pool at one of the president’s golf clubs.
But the makeover has been derailed by two major issues: a bright green algal bloom and peeling of the pool’s new, controversial “American Flag Blue”- tinted coating.
Trump spent weeks bragging about the renovation, which has now cost taxpayers about $14.5 million.
At one point, the president even traveled to Wisconsin for the first time since the election to speak to struggling farmers, only to veer off into a long winded tangent about the project. He even brought them “before and after” pictures.
The president on Wednesday floated sending people to prison for 10 years if they were found guilty of sabotage.
He said the pool had a “world class surface” until vandals “came in, and they cut it up, and they grabbed it and they pulled it.”
“They’re sick people, so I think they’re in big trouble,” he added.
