Jeanine Pirro, who from 1994 through 2005 served three consecutive terms as the Westchester County District Attorney and now is the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia came under social media attack from Donald Trump over the weekend. The president lashed out at Pirro after she made a court filing on July 31 that blamed problems at the National Mall Reflecting Pool on shoddy and botched work by the contractor instead of vandalism as Trump claims.
The New York Times reported that the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, is owned by an investment trust controlled by a neighbor of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property who is a campaign contributor. The company received a no-bid contact for work on the Reflecting Pool that initially was estimated by Trump at less than $2 million but ballooned to more than $14 million.
“I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM,” Trump wrote on social media. Trump, while repeating his vandalism claim, once again did not provide any evidence to support the claim.
Pirro’s court filing was to drop a case against former Olympian David Hearn, who was accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool.
“It was not until after the return of the indictment, that The DOI (Department of Interior)provided additional documents to the USAO-DC (Pirro’s office) indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings (‘AIC’), and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026,” Pirro’s office said in its court filing asking for the case to be dismissed. “It was not until after these documents were produced that USAO-DC first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism.”
The court filing by Pirro’s office made it clear that the Trump administration’s National Park Service (NPS) was aware of problems with the work that had been done on installing a new reflecting pool liner.
“Work on installing the lining almost immediately fell behind, due to a combination of very rainy and windy weather, repeated failures of testing on the sealing of the expansion joints, and delays in obtaining sealing product at the worksite,” Pirro’s court filing said. “The rush to complete the project led to hasty and botched work that was not remediated before the project was finished and the fencing removed. Almost immediately after work was initially completed, peeling was observed along the pool perimeter. The NPS engineer’s June 11, 2026, email stated that the cause of the damage was contractor error via ‘overspray’; Moreover, the July 20, 2026, inspection by contractors confirmed that overspray and delamination had occurred, again pointing to contractor error. Finally, a recent visual inspection showed damage throughout the Reflecting Pool, even in the middle of the pool, where a vandal would not likely attempt to peel the lining.”
Following Pirro’s court filing, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum took to social media to back up Trump’s claims of vandalism.
CNN’s Aleena Fayaz reported that on June 9, crews refilled the pool. One day after it was filled, CNN first observed the presence of algae — in some areas. It could be seen from the water’s edge on the bottom of the pool. A worker who was vacuuming in the water told CNN the substance was algae.
At the onset of the project, the administration dispatched a company to use a $1.7 million “ozone nanobubbler” to clear the algae, bacteria and other chemicals. The company, Greenwater Services, previously walked CNN through a timeline of its work, revealing some accommodations were needed to meet the president’s July Fourth deadline.
By June 11, a National Park Service engineer’s attention was drawn to peeling of the Reflecting Pool lining. As media reports swirled about peeling liner at the Reflecting Pool, Trump first claimed that the pool’s broader problems were a result of vandalism.
“We’ve had some real problems with Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, without citing evidence. He said the algae was “75% gone” and that the “vandalized” area would be fixed in late June.
On June 20, Trump said he met with contractors and vowed to repair the damage as quickly as possible, saying vandals used a blade to cut a “250 foot long gash” and poured “corrosive and destructive chemicals” into the pool.
Following July Fourth celebrations, the pool was drained again for repairs. The contractor charged with monitoring AIC’s progress inspected the Reflecting Pool and attributed the peeling to overspraying and the coatings’ inability to bond to the surface, according to the DOJ’s filing.
Trump doubled down on his vandalism claims in July, complaining about news reports on the pool and insisting the lining “was slashed with a knife, or a box cutter” and that even the algae blooms were “caused by vandals.”
Pirro and her prosecutors say they weren’t able to fully view the extent of the damage until July 17, after the pool was drained and a defense expert inspected the site. After requesting more documents on the pool’s renovation, Pirro’s office said that information “indicated a rushed and flawed installation process, with repeated failures of the lining during the installation process, and extensive peeling of the lining throughout the Reflecting Pool.”
This article includes material by Aleena Fayaz, CNN – ™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
