What a new Justice Department filing says about the ‘botched’ Reflecting Pool renovation

(CNN) — The Justice Department on Friday said the rush to complete President Donald Trump’s renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool led to “hasty and botched work,” shedding new light on the problems behind the Washington landmark’s $14 million facelift.

In delivering a sharp contradiction to weeks of claims from Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that vandals destroyed the Reflecting Pool, DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro attributed the bungled installation to bad weather, testing failures and shipment setbacks.

Trump and Burgum, meanwhile, continue to blame alleged vandals for the deteriorating pool lining, algae blooms and green water that appeared after the renovation.

“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 Saturday on Truth Social. Burgum also dismissed the findings in a social media post, saying that “The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool.”

The new details come from the DOJ’s Friday filing announcing it was dropping the case against former Olympian David Hearn, who was accused of vandalizing the landmark.

Here’s what we know about what went wrong with the Reflecting Pool:

Renovation on an expedited timeline

Trump set out in late March to renovate the Reflecting Pool, which he described as “absolutely filthy” and vowed to make it “look gorgeous.”

In the weeks that followed, Trump expanded the scope of the project and ordered cosmetic changes, including painting the bottom of the pool “American flag blue.” The paint change immediately sparked a lawsuit from a nonprofit group, which argued the project violated federal laws requiring the Interior Department to complete a consultation process before beginning the work.

The president also wanted the project to be complete before America’s 250th birthday on July Fourth, an expedited timeline that the administration acknowledged drove up the cost — nearly seven times as much as the initial estimate of $1.8 million.

Installation for the Reflecting Pool lining began on May 5 by Virginia-based firm Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the sole contractor for the extensive project, according to the Justice Department filing.

The firm used two coating products — Rhino 406 and Pipeliner 5000 — in the renovation of the nearly 340,000-square-foot pool (that’s about the size of about six football fields).

Construction was significantly stalled due to spring showers, which hindered the expedited installation process the Trump administration had hoped for, at one point requiring crews to pump out the rain water to allow the coating to dry, according to the filing.

Crews continued to spray coats of the lining material, but the delays, largely due to weather, caught the attention of an employee with Brown Construction Services, a contractor charged with monitoring Atlantic Industrial Coatings’ progress. “It appears AIC is significantly behind schedule,” the employee wrote on May 7.

Delays ballooned when AIC ran out of Rhino 406, one of the primary coatings, and a quality control inspector flagged “blistering” in the finished portions of the lining and called for repairs.

Algae blooms and lining peels

On June 9, crews completed a final inspection of the site and 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. “Only the top layer of liner has peeled. This is very thin and will not impact the strength of the liner,” the employee wrote in an email to NPS and Interior Department personnel, according to the court documents.

The Park Service engineer said the contractor attributed the peeled area as an “overspray” from spraying the perimeter joint with polyurea — a type of elastic coating. The employee flagged his concern that the “overspray” could lead to a 1-to-2-foot strip that is “vulnerable to peeling,” but said the contractor would not confirm whether this was a risk. The area along the perimeter is where Hearn, the former Olympian, was accused of peeling just eight days after the email.

Claims of vandalism

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. Even AIC said that “99% of anything that was going to fail” would show up within a couple of weeks of finishing the renovation.

Trump doubled down on 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.”

Burgum, in a July 5 interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said the government could “absolutely” prove the damage was caused by vandals, and that there were photographs supporting the claim. But he dodged a question about whether those photographs showed anyone damaging the pool.

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.

That very day, Trump railed against the alleged vandals on Truth Social, calling them animals. “The Reflecting Pool, so badly damaged by Deranged Vandals, has been emptied as the massive slash gets repaired,” Trump said, adding, “The Scum in Court will hopefully be prosecuted to the MAX.”

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.”

Nearly three months from the outset of construction, Trump said Monday the Reflecting Pool is “almost ready to open” once again.

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CNN’s Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.