Crews reportedly started draining the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington again on Friday — something that has happened multiple times as the Trump administration navigates problems following its renovation.
While President Donald Trump initially said he wanted to have the pool ready by the Fourth of July, issues quickly surfaced after renovations, which cost at least $16 million, were completed in June.
The pool on the National Mall had to be treated for algae bloom, and pieces of the new coating started peeling off the bottom.
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Trump says vandals are behind the peeling. Critics, meanwhile, say it’s because of the renovations themselves.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgham, who spoke to Katie Miller, wife of deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, this week on her podcast, said more of the pool would be drained, adding that it could still have debris in it from a Fourth of July fireworks display.
He also repeated Trump’s claims of vandalism. Asked by Miller, who described herself as a “bit of a conspiracy theorist,” how cameras didn’t capture footage of anyone cutting the pool, Burgum said they “had very few or no cameras at the beginning.”
“We have cameras all over our monuments,” Burgum said. “The Reflecting Pool is part of the Lincoln Memorial … but there had never been vandalism on this helpful, harmless Reflecting pool … until (Trump) decided to beautify it.”
It’s at that point, Burgum said, that “others decided it was a point of attack.”
“We did have some vandalism starting as early as June 9, which we didn’t advertise because we didn’t want to have copycats,” Burgum said. “We started putting up cameras. We’ve got better camera coverage today.”
On Thursday, former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn pleaded not guilty Thursday to a felony charge accusing him of damaging the pool. He appeared in D.C. Superior Court after a grand jury indicted him on one felony count of destruction of property.
Prosecutors accuse Hearn of causing more than $1,000 in damage by pulling up part of the pool’s newly installed blue liner. But Hearn’s attorneys say the government is attempting to hold him responsible for issues the pool was already facing from the renovations.
“If Mr. Hearn can be charged with a felony for touching the Reflecting Pool, every American is at risk and every American should be alarmed about this prosecution,” attorney Norm Eisen said. He called the case “a misuse of government power.”
The government, Eisen argued, is trying to shift blame for a renovation that had already begun failing onto “an ordinary American based on a false and politicized narrative.”
Hearn himself has denied damaging the pool, saying he stopped during a bicycle ride to reach down and touch a section of blue liner already peeling away. He maintains he left the Reflecting Pool in the same condition he found it.
But U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro alleges National Park Service employees watched Hearn vandalize the pool.
“By Hearn’s own admission, on June 19, he reached down into the pool,” Pirro said. “Our evidence further shows that the National Park Service employees observed Hearn actually forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands.”
Three other people who are accused of removing pieces of the pool’s liner were hit with misdemeanor charges. Hearn is the only one charged with a felony.
DC News Now reported on Friday that tourists visiting the Reflecting pool were disappointed to see it being drained again, and that it was surrounded by fences.
“It kind of makes me sad a little bit,” Lindsay Anderson of Nebraska said. “…I think it’s unfortunate that a lot of people are here in our nation’s capital. And like, we’re here to see it, and we can’t really.”
Donald Stoops said it was “a little disappointing” to see, as he came “all the way from Tennessee thinking I was going to be able to walk closer to the Reflecting Pool.”
“Unfortunately, this is the closest I want to get is right here up at the Lincoln Memorial,” Stoops said.
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