from the not-that-this-will-change-Trump's-narrative dept

Reflecting Pool Contractors: Alleged ‘Vandalism’ Was Just Our Own Botched Repair Job

The truth continues to come out, and not via Truth Social. Everything former Olympian David Hearn might need to pursue a malicious prosecution lawsuit against the Trump DOJ has been leaking more steadily than the botched Lincoln Reflecting Pool repair job itself.

This time, it’s the contractor admitting its repair job didn’t go as planned, which means most of the stuff Trump (and his toady at the Interior Department, Doug Burgum) claimed to be the work of anti-Trump vandals was just shoddy workmanship.

The contractor that renovated the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has told the Trump administration that errors in its own work and flaws in the repair plan, not vandalism, caused the pool’s new blue liner to peel and break loose, according to government documents reviewed by The New York Times.

[…]

[T]he documents, which have not previously been reported, make clear that the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, found problems in both the design and the execution of the renovation. The documents include Atlantic’s reports to the government as well as daily progress updates from the National Park Service over the past two months.

The time frame for these revelations is the “past two months.” That would jibe with the DOJ’s decision to (sort of) drop its prosecution of David Hearn. Those court filings made it pretty clear that any alleged “vandalism” was actually just the result of a mishandled resurfacing effort floating to the surface of the pool.

Still, the DOJ has refused to fullly dismiss charges against alleged vandals with prejudice, which would prevent it from re-filing charges should Trump still demand some (metaphorical) public hangings in response to his administration’s failure to ensure this job was handled competently, promptly, and under budget.

At this point, Atlantic Industrial Coatings is on its third attempt to produce an “American flag blue” undercoating that won’t immediately divorce itself from the application area and float to the surface, where it can be easily grabbed by visitors to the reflecting pool, like David Hearn and the handful of others who have been criminally charged for daring to handle physical manifestations of Trump’s hubris.

While there may have been a few people doing a bit more than grabbing pieces of reflecting pool flotsam, the documents delivered by the pool repair contractors make it clear no serious “vandalism” ever took place.

The documents also show that Atlantic did blame vandals for cuts in the caulking around the pool’s edge that National Park Service workers had previously reported to the police. But the company did not link those cuts to the peeling of the blue liner on the pool’s floor, which Mr. Trump repeatedly blamed on “sick people” wielding knives or razors.

Now, there are real and serious questions about who knew what and when. According to the dismissal documents filed by US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the Department of Interior apparently deliberately withheld documents linking damage to the pool repair contractors, rather than “sick people” who were apparently able to slash 250′-350′ cuts into the pool lining undetected.

Since the DOI head (Doug Burgum) has done nothing but ape and amplify Trump’s lies about pool vandalism, the burden of proof (or proof of buried proof) falls back on the Interior Department. As for Trump himself, it’s hard to tell what exactly has happened here, but it’s easy to believe Trump wasn’t made aware of this evidence until long after he’d doubled-down and his “vandalism” claims.

After all, Burgum didn’t bring this evidence to Trump’s attention, preferring instead to fully engage with an obviously false Trump narrative. It took a visit to the Oval Office to fully apprise Trump of the situation, at which point Trump doubled down again, while trying to distance himself from the zero-bid contractor he previously referred to as the ultimate in patriotic pool repair surfaces.

It probably doesn’t matter how this all shakes out on the Trump side. Trump is going to continue to post his way through this, vocalizing whatever brief synapse flashes flicker through his lizard brain, hoping against hope to push completely through the facts and emerge victorious in yet another one of his Wars on Undeniable Facts.

As for David Hearn and those similarly situated, these documents will buttress claims of malicious prosecution. While the DOJ may be able to honestly claim it wasn’t aware of these facts until after it had secured indictments, it won’t change the malicious prosecution math because prosecutors are, at minimum, supposed to gather all relevant facts well before trying to pursue criminal charges. That the DOJ — under the direction of US Attorney Jeanine Pirro — decided its priority was assuaging Trump’s vindictive bloodlust rather than actually pursuing justice isn’t going to help it much when the people falsely accused of federal crimes start fighting back.