Trump attacks Pirro as US drops Lincoln Memorial pool vandalism case

Washington,UPDATED: Aug 2, 2026 02:40 IST

US President Donald Trump on Saturday sharply criticised US Attorney Jeanine Pirro after her office said damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was caused by faulty construction rather than vandalism. The move came after Pirro's office asked a court to drop criminal charges against former Olympian David Hearn, who had been accused of deliberately damaging the pool.

In a social media post, Trump said there "may have been some contractor difficulty" in installing a new pool liner, but insisted that "the major damage was caused by VANDALS!" He added: "I disagree 100 per cent with Jeanine Pirro, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool."

The request to dismiss the case marked a setback for the Justice Department, which had earlier backed Trump's claims and presented the prosecution as accountability for damage at the Washington landmark. Even so, Trump again alleged on Saturday, without offering clear new evidence, that most of the damage had been caused by vandals.

In a 20-page court filing on Friday, government lawyers said additional documents provided by the Interior Department after Hearn's indictment showed the damage resulted from a botched installation by a contractor and "the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026". The filing also said a recent visual inspection found damage throughout the pool, including in the middle, where prosecutors said a vandal would be unlikely to try to peel the lining.

Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist, had been accused of pulling up a two-foot square piece of the pool's lining. In the filing, Pirro, a Trump appointee, said: "Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt." She also said the Interior Department had provided "less than fulsome information at the outset of the case".

The filing added that if the Department of the Interior "had been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment". The position was a sharp change from Pirro's statement last month, when she said the government's case was based on "tremendous evidence" while announcing the indictment against Hearn.

Hearn's legal team on Saturday criticised both Trump and Pirro and said it was considering "legal remedies" for its client. In a statement, the lawyers said: "Trump is mad at Pirro because she finally admitted what we made clear in our legal filings all along: Trump's botched renovation was responsible for the damage - not Davey Hearn." They added: "However, her claim that she and her office were previously duped by Interior is nonsense. Starting immediately after the arraignment, our motions repeatedly proved that the administration was to blame for the Reflecting Pool failures, not Davey." Interior Department officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Trump also posted a video of nearly four minutes that appeared to be from a security camera, showing three people with their hands in the pool, including one person for an extended period. He said the footage showed "material is being cut with a knife or a box cutter, for all to see!" But from the footage, which appears to have been shot from a distance, it was not clear that any vandalism had taken place. Workers could also be seen nearby and did not appear to react to the people putting their hands in the water.

In May, Trump announced plans to beautify the Reflecting Pool. Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings was given a USD 14.7 million no-bid contract to repaint and waterproof the pool's concrete floor, but the company did not respond to requests for comment. The water was drained and Trump directed that the bottom be painted what he called "American flag blue". Problems emerged within days of the work being completed, with parts of the new liner peeling off. Trump then blamed vandals, and the Park Service reported to the US Park Police that a June 9 incident involved what it said was a sharp knife or razor cutting the pool's new liner.

The Reflecting Pool work is one of several projects Trump has pushed in Washington. Most prominently, he demolished the White House's East Wing to build a USD 400 million ballroom and plans to build an arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery. The dispute over the pool now centres on Trump's continued insistence that vandals caused the damage, even as his own administration has moved to drop the case against Hearn and blamed the damage on the renovation work.

With PTI Inputs

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