The Trump administration will use the same company that tried to renovate the Reflecting Pool to repair it — ‘because they did a fantastic job’

The Trump administration will not seek new bids to repair the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Sunday as he faced new questions about the troubled project and the taxpayer money involved.

Like President Donald Trump, Burgum said he was 100% sure that vandals caused the damage to the century-old Reflecting Pool on the National Mall. Trump has charged that a 350-foot gash was cut into the pool’s liner in the midst of recent renovations, while Burgum described it as multiple cuts adding up to that figure. He also said the pool would have to be at least partially drained in the coming week to finish the repairs.

The repairs will not be opened up to new contractors, he said.

“We’ll use the same company, because they did a fantastic job,” Burgum told CNN’s “State of the Union.” ”Thankfully, the vandalism was small. It was bad. I mean, it could cost tens of thousands of dollars to repair, so then it could fall into a felony … just like damaging any........

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