Gotta love a MAGA civil war.
As we all could have predicted from the original story (below), Trump was upset when the US Attorney’s Office, which had to tell the truth in a sworn filing to the court, placed the blame for the damaged reflecting pool on a combination of Trump’s no-bid contractor and Trump’s having rushed the repairs to clear the area in time for his UFC fight. (The filing also basically accused the Department of the Interior of deliberately misleading and stonewalling the US Attorney’s office, as cited below.)
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In the process of making the filing, the US Attorney’s office uncharacteristically took a big shit on the Department of the Interior, headed by Secretary Doug Burgum. (Heckuva job, Dougie!)
DOI represented that nearly all of the damage to the Reflecting Pool was due to vandalism with only a small portion due to unidentified other causes. … DOI provided less than fulsome information at the outset of this case. The information subsequently demanded by USAO disclosed by DOI — which was not known to the prosecutors or the grand jury before the return of the indictment — strongly suggest that a rushed and botched installation by AIC, the primary contractor, led to the damage to the lining of the Reflecting Pool. … Atlantic Industrial Coatings (“AIC”) was selected as the sole-source contractor for installation of the Reflecting Pool lining. … It was not until USAO-DC repeatedly reached out to DOI dozens and dozens of times that DOI slowly started trickling information to USAO-DC. Had DOI been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment.
As you can see from the verbiage above, the filing also took a subtle shot at Trump’s decision to award a no-bid contract. In another part of the filing, it took a not-so-subtle shot at the pressure on the contractor to rush the job before Trump’s silly UFC fight. The line prosecutor didn’t use the word “silly UFC fight,” but if court documents can have subtext, the implication was somewhere between “Trump’s silly UFC fight” and “Trump’s fucking UFC fight.”
On June 9, a final inspection was completed, and crews then cleaned the site and removed the equipment, in time for the UFC fight scheduled to occur on the White House grounds on June 14, 2026. But only two days later, on June 11, 2026, an NPS engineer was alerted to peeling of the Reflecting Pool lining. … It was not until after the return of the indictment, that the DOI provided additional documents to the USAO-DC 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. … 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.
Always amusing to watch the rats turn on each other. Enjoy the view from under the bus, Mr. Burgum. Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of company.
Of course if it had all worked out, trumpy would be crowing “Only _I_ could’ve worked this miracle,” but of course the predictable failure is always someone else’s fault.
Trump’s “lawyers” have been embarrassed so much in court so much they decided this one wasn’t worth the tongue lashing.
As it ever was, and will ever be … TACO.
Fuckin’ Chunp. Never fails to fail.
If Rumpy Boy had the balls god gave a field mouse, he’d call up this contractor and say:
We paid you to put down a liner, you fucked it up. This is going to be a warrantee job. You will drain the pool, scrape up that crap liner, and dispose it at your expense. You will clear the recirculator of algae this time. You will do a proper surface prep. (I promise not to drive all over it.) You will recoat the pool. If you need cold joints, you will do them right. Stupid dark blue color is optional, but if algae growth recurs, you will be out there cleaning it up. We’re not in a hurry, but we will be watching: there will be a camera on you as you work, this will feed to a public website. In the upper right of this site’s landing page will be a running total of how many days it takes. Day 1 is tomorrow. Go.
Hey, I said If.