The contractor that renovated the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has told the Trump administration that its own installation errors and a flawed repair plan — not vandalism — caused the pool’s new blue liner to peel and tear apart, according to government documents reviewed by The New York Times. The admission directly contradicts months of public statements from President Trump, who insisted that vandals wielding knives and box cutters were responsible for destroying the “American flag blue” coating, even after federal prosecutors were forced to abandon criminal charges they had brought against the people he accused.
A Rushed, No-Bid Renovation Before July 4
The failure traces back to the Trump administration’s push to finish the Reflecting Pool renovation in time for the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4. To meet that deadline, the government bypassed competitive bidding and awarded a no-bid contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings to carry out an untested repair approach that was designed in part by the general manager of one of Trump’s golf clubs. The government agreed to pay Atlantic $14.7 million for the work, and the contractor has said it will now redo the repairs under warranty.
What Went Wrong, According to the Contractor
According to documents dated Aug. 14 and Sept. 2, Atlantic told the government that “human oversight” led workers to under-apply primer needed to bond the liner’s layers in some areas. But the company said the larger problem was baked into the contract itself: the repair plan called for layering two chemically incompatible compounds. The top layer reached temperatures higher than the layer beneath it could withstand, causing the bottom layer to blister and separate — an outcome Atlantic said it did not anticipate because mixing the two products in that configuration was highly unusual.
Trump Blames Vandals, Prosecutors Follow His Lead
Trump began publicly blaming vandals for the damage soon after the peeling was first noticed, writing in a June 20 Truth Social post, “Who would do such a thing?” while touting several arrests. Federal prosecutors acted on those claims when they announced the indictment of David Hearn, a 67-year-old former Olympic canoeist from Bethesda, Maryland, on a felony destruction-of-property charge in early July.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro told reporters at the time that “the evidence shows and we will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hearn willfully destroyed property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool,” claiming witnesses had seen him “forcefully and violently” ripping liner material from the pool floor. Hearn pleaded not guilty and was later joined by three other defendants accused of similar conduct.
The Justice Department’s Reversal
In a stunning reversal weeks later, Pirro’s office moved to dismiss the case, telling the court in a 20-page filing that newly produced Interior Department records showed the damage was the result of a “botched installation by a contractor” and the rush to complete the project ahead of the America 250 celebration, rather than vandalism. Prosecutors noted that a visual inspection had found damage spread throughout the pool, including in the middle, where a vandal would not likely have attempted to peel the lining. The filing concluded that it was “difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Hearn’s attorneys said the case never should have been filed. Following the dismissal motion, three other defendants who had faced related charges also had their cases dropped, further undercutting the administration’s account.
Trump Refuses to Let Go
Rather than accept the reversal, Trump attacked Pirro directly, accusing her of “folding like an umbrella” and calling her decision a mistake, even while grudgingly acknowledging “there was also some contractor error.” He went further in a Truth Social post days later, writing that “a National Park Service career employee, a highly credible witness, saw David Hearn (ActBlue) in broad daylight vandalize the Reflecting Pool by ‘violently’ ripping and tugging at the Pool’s somewhat delicate coating.”
By Aug. 9, Trump conceded on social media that “there is no video or proof” of vandalism, but continued to minimize the contractor’s role, writing, “There was also some contractor error done by rushing the job for a July 4th opening. But it was a very small area of this massive Pool, and was relatively inconsequential.” He predicted the pool would reopen “shortly.” It remained drained more than a month later.
A Case Without Resolution
A judge formally dismissed the criminal case against Hearn on Aug. 6, but left open the more consequential question of whether the dismissal would be “with prejudice,” permanently barring prosecutors from recharging him, or “without prejudice,” leaving that option open. Pirro’s office has argued for the latter, telling the court that “dismissal with prejudice is not necessary to protect the defendant from any future risk of prosecutorial overreach here” and that a grand jury would provide sufficient protection if the case were ever revived.
Hearn’s lawyers have pushed back hard, arguing that Trump’s continued public attacks on Hearn and on Pirro’s own team leave their client without real closure. They wrote that Trump’s public rejection of the dismissal, in which he said Pirro “choked” and called it a “mistake,” does not “provide Mr. Hearn with meaningful finality consistent with the Constitution’s speedy trial and double jeopardy protections.” At a September hearing, a prosecutor from Pirro’s office told the judge the office was no longer investigating Hearn’s conduct at all, even as it resisted a permanent dismissal.
As of this week, Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman had not yet ruled on whether the dismissal would be permanent, telling both sides he would issue a decision soon.
The Repairs Continue
The documents reviewed by the Times show just how difficult the repair work has been. On Aug. 13, Atlantic began power-washing the pool to remove loose liner, filling one large trash bag by the following day, with many more fragments requiring removal by razor blade, hammer and crowbar. When the company reapplied the blue coating, the same blistering problem resurfaced. Only earlier this month did Atlantic conclude that the two incompatible chemicals were to blame and stop layering the hotter compound on top — a change that reduced, but did not eliminate, the blistering.
The contractor also identified an unexpected contributing factor: sweat. A worker spraying the coating in a protective suit under the summer sun left droplets of sweat on the surface that became trapped beneath new layers of lining. Atlantic’s response was for the worker to open the top of his suit and wrap cloth around his head and wrists to contain the sweat; the documents do not indicate whether that resolved the issue.
Political Appointees and Trump Organization Ties
The documents also reveal a level of White House attention to the project’s optics. A National Park Service employee notified workers on Aug. 14 that Trump would be flying over the pool aboard Marine One that day, and Gregory Wischer, a political appointee at the Interior Department, personally visited the site to supervise the work. Wischer, a former metal-processing executive who originally joined the administration to work on critical minerals policy, has since taken on oversight of the Reflecting Pool project and other of the president’s Washington beautification efforts. Interior Department visitor logs show that in March, Wischer met with David Schutzenhofer, the manager of a Trump Organization golf club in New Jersey who helped design the renovation approach that ultimately failed.
Officials Continue to Point at Vandals
Even with the contractor’s own findings on record, Interior Department spokeswoman Katie Martin did not directly address questions about Atlantic’s admissions, instead issuing a statement that continued to blame vandals, saying they had “repeatedly reached into the pool and ripped at the coating.” Martin said Atlantic was “well on its way” to finishing the repairs but did not say when the pool would be refilled. White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers offered a broader statement crediting Trump’s renovation efforts and referred specific questions about the contractor’s findings back to the Interior Department, saying, “President Trump promised to make D.C. safe and beautiful, and he’s delivering.” Representatives for Atlantic did not respond to requests for comment, and Rhino Linings, the manufacturer of the compounds used in the liner, did not immediately respond either; its chief executive, Pierre Gagnon, had said in June that the peeling was “limited to isolated areas” of the pool.
As of Thursday, the pool remained drained and full of workers, some tearing up large strips of the failed blue lining while others sprayed new coating under the watch of an inspector from Atlantic — work still unfolding nearly a year after the project was first rushed to completion, and months after the men wrongly blamed for its failure walked out of a Washington courtroom.