President Donald Trump said on Monday that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is “70% filled with water and looking good” and warned that anyone who damages it again “will GO TO JAIL,” even though federal prosecutors appointed by Trump himself have told a court the pool’s lining was ruined by a botched installation and not by vandals.
asserted
lining → say → vandals
The president threatened the imaginary vandals in a Truth Social post in which he continued to insist that previous damage to the lining his hand-picked contractor attempted to install this part spring was real and attacked the Justice Department’s admission that it was contractor error as “the ridiculous writings of some Radical Left person in the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office who got it wrong and obviously didn’t investigate, witness, or see the attached tape,” referencing a segment on Fox News host Jesse Waters’ eponymous show which he included with the social media missive.
asserted
he → threaten → missive
Trump also repeated a dubious claim that someone had poisoned the grass on the Mall to spell out “86 47” — slang for removing the 47th president — in letters “90 feet tall and encompassing the width of the entire Park,” and said that grass has since been replaced.
uncertain
grass → repeat → Park
He offered no evidence for that claim, and the 65-second video attached to the post did not appear to show it.
uncertain
video → offer → it
Much of the National Mall’s grass surface has needed repair in recent months, but those repairs were necessitated by damage caused by structures erected for the president’s “Great American State Fair” earlier this year.
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repairs → need → Fair
Trump continued to suggest that the pool’s problems predated his renovation.
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problems → continue → renovation
“Interestingly, the Reflecting Pool has not worked properly since it was built in 1922 — It always leaked!
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It → work → 1922
This will be different, but any Vandals that try to prove the point otherwise, will GO TO JAIL!” he wrote.
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he → try → JAIL
“We are watching very closely, and security cameras have been installed.”
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cameras → watch → ?
Washington, D.C. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro — herself a former Fox presenter — brought the only criminal case over the damage in July, when it accused David Hearn, a 67-year-old former Olympic canoeist, of “forcefully and violently” ripping out the liner.
asserted
it → bring → liner
Within weeks prosecutors had dropped the charges and conceded in a court filing that the “American flag blue” coating Trump requested had started peeling “almost immediately” after it went on.
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it → drop → filing
The Interior Department, they wrote, had “provided less than fulsome information at the outset of this case,” and it was only after Hearn was indicted that the agency determined the “damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism.”
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damage → write → installation
Trump responded by publicly urging Pirro to “revisit her hastily made decision.”
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Trump → respond → decision
A judge then blocked prosecutors from charging Hearn a second time, citing the likelihood of “political pressure” from the president, and earlier this month D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman threw the case out for good, describing the prospect of another prosecution as “simply fanciful,”
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Edelman → block → prosecution
Last week, The Independent reported on a 75-page failure analysis commissioned by the contractor that did the work.
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that → report → work
It found the liner had failed in at least 85 places after crews refilled the pool before the coating had set, a rush driven by Trump’s demand that the job be finished for the July 4 celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday.
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job → find → birthday
The coating buckled along eight of the basin’s 10 expansion joints and blistered in nearly 40 spots where moisture or fumes got trapped beneath it.
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moisture → buckle → it
Vandalism is not mentioned anywhere in the report.
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Vandalism → mention → report
The president originally said the renovation could be done quickly for about $1.5 million.
uncertain
renovation → say → million
The cost is now close to $20 million, much of it paid out through no-bid contracts.
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much → pay → contracts
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in July that no new contracts would be awarded after spending passed $17 million, but the National Park Service handed out a $2.7 million contract for water treatment work the following month.
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Service → say → work
Hearn’s lawyers have asked the Justice and Interior departments to open an independent investigation.
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lawyers → ask → investigation
In a statement last week they said the administration “subjected an innocent man to a nightmare of wrongful arrest, felony indictment, and public defamation to cover up their own botched, rushed renovation of the Reflecting Pool.”
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administration → say → Pool
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