Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool caught in legal crossfire

A multifront legal battle is intensifying over the Trump administration’s controversial overhaul of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, with arrests for alleged vandalism colliding with scrutiny of the renovation. 

President Trump shared plans in late April to repair and renovate the 2,028-foot landmark on the National Mall, describing it as “terrible” and “filthy” and promising the project could be completed for less than $2 million and in time for the nation’s 250th anniversary.  

The remodel — which came with a price tag more than seven times Trump’s estimate — was completed in the first week of June. It included waterproofing the pool’s bottom, mending leaking joints and repainting it “American flag blue.”   

But within days, clumps of algae popped up on the water’s surface, giving it a green hue. Flecks of the newly applied, hand-picked paint also began peeling and floating to the top.   

Crews deployed by the Interior Department soon began using hydrogen peroxide and nanobubble technology to try to combat the algae blooms but to no avail.   

Multiple dead ducks were also found in and near the pool, spurring calls from the Center for Biological Diversity for an investigation into whether the use of those chemicals, the peeling paint or toxic blooms was responsible.   

As scrutiny grew, the White House deflected blame. Administration officials claimed the water quality and aesthetic problems were the result of “crazy and deranged lunatics” vandalizing the site, with Trump claiming chemicals had been poured into the water and a 300-plus-foot slit was cut into the bottom.   

“They went down with probably a box cutter or a very sharp razor of some kind or a knife, and they cut, and then they started ripping it up,” he recently said in the Oval Office. “You know why? Because they’re sick people.”  

Experts aren’t so sure.   

“It is absolutely impossible that anyone could have inoculated that pool and shown an effect in literally hours,” Wayne Carmichael, a biological sciences professor at Wright State University, told PBS News. “Absolutely a silly notion.”  

Critics argued the problems were due to a rushed job, homing in on the no-bid contracts awarded to Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings and Ohio-based Green Water Solutions, two firms with ties to Trump.   

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum confirmed on Sunday that the same company will handle the pending repairs, defending the work as “fantastic.”   

“Thankfully, the vandalism was small. It was, it was bad. I mean, it could cost tens of thousands of dollars to repair, so then it could fall into a felony, felony thing, just like damaging any other government property could,” Burgum said on CNN.   

The Trump administration has begun pursuing criminal cases against at least half a dozen individuals it says have vandalized the pool.   

That includes former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn, a 67-year-old Bethesda, Md., resident who was indicted by a D.C. grand jury last week on felony destruction of property charges. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.   

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro accused Hearn during a press conference of “forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the........

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