OPEN LETTER · THE REFLECTING POOL · 45047
Your Own Engineer Wrote It Down Eight Days Before the Arrest
On June 11 a National Park Service engineer sent an email naming the cause of the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. He wrote that the coating had come loose because of contractor overspray. David Hearn was arrested on June 19 and indicted on July 2. On Friday your own U.S. Attorney read those documents and moved to dismiss. On Monday you said she folded like an umbrella. The liner did not fail because someone attacked it. It failed because it was finished in a hurry, for a deadline you set.
By Michael · August 4, 2026
Dear Mr. President,
Spotlight Dispatch, generated August 4, 2026. There is not one straight edge in it. The coating came up in sheets, curling at the corners, the way paint lifts when it never bonded to the concrete underneath.
On June 11 an engineer at the National Park Service sent an email about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. He wrote that the coating had come loose because of contractor overspray. He named a cause. He did not mention vandals, because on June 11 there were no vandals to mention. A contractor inspection on July 20 confirmed the same thing — overspray and delamination.
David Hearn was arrested on June 19. He was indicted on July 2. Your government wrote down the answer eight days before it took him, and three weeks before it charged him with a felony.
· WHAT YOUR OWN PROSECUTOR PUT IN WRITING ·
From the motion to dismiss, filed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro on July 31, 2026: — The damage "was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with" the Fourth of July. — The work fell behind because of "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." — "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." — "Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt." And the line that is about the Interior Department, not about you: "DOI provided less than fulsome information at the outset of this case." Her office says it reached out to Interior "dozens and dozens of times" before those documents came.
I want to be fair to Jeanine Pirro, because she comes out of this better than anyone. Her prosecutors went back to Interior dozens and dozens of times before the documents came. When they came, she read them, and on a Friday evening she moved to dismiss a case she had announced herself at a podium four weeks earlier. You handpicked her. She is your friend of many years. On Monday you said she folded like an umbrella. Sir, she got the paperwork, and the paperwork said nobody did it.
· WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT JEANINE PIRRO ·
Saturday, August 1, on Truth Social: "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." And: "There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!" Monday, August 3, in the Oval Office: "I was disappointed in Jeanine Pirro. Really disappointed in Jeanine Pirro. She folded like an umbrella, and people got away with things. It's a disgrace." "The judge was extremely unfriendly to Jeanine and, frankly, I think she choked because the judge was really vicious." "I guess she choked. I don't know what the hell happened." "Jeanine Pirro made a mistake. There was vandalism." She met with you at the White House that same afternoon. She did not resign and you did not fire her. People around you told CBS News you were, their word, pissed.
Four people were charged. David Hearn, a three-time Olympic canoeist, accused of pulling up a piece of the lining two feet square. Justin Carreno. Sophie Dennison-Gibby. Cameron Thiers. You said publicly they should get years in jail. Their names went out on the wires attached to a felony against the Lincoln Memorial, and there is no filing in the world that scrubs that off a person. Hearn's lawyers say the case should never have been brought and that the administration owes him an apology. I think they are right.
Now the part I keep coming back to.
· THE LEDGER ·
— Atlantic Industrial Coatings, of Virginia. No-bid, awarded April 3, 2026: $14.7 million, including supplemental agreements through June 15. The owner told NBC News it was priced at $13.1 million and then rose to $14.6 million. — Green Water Solutions, of Ohio. No-bid, awarded April 2026: $1.7 million, for a nano-bubble filtration system. Federal contracting records list the owner as the JJ Cafaro Investment Trust. John J. Cafaro gave $250,000 to the Trump Victory committee in 2020. The award was justified under "unusual and compelling urgency" — the need to finish before July 4. — Federal records reported by ABC News put the total above $16 million, roughly $4 million past the estimate. — Your own first number, May 7: "about $1.8 million." On May 21: "I originally thought I'd do it for $2 million or $3 million," and then, "we'll probably be in it for less than $20 million." — On July 5 Secretary Burgum said the second round of repairs goes to the same contractor, with no new bids. That amount has not been disclosed.
This pool was not neglected into failure. It was renovated into failure, on a schedule, and the schedule was the Fourth of July. Your own prosecutor's filing says so in plain English: rain, wind, expansion joints that kept failing their seal tests, sealing product that did not show up on time, and then a rush to finish before the fencing came down. That is not a mystery. That is what happens when a deadline outranks a cure time.
And it is why I do not think the vandalism story is a mistake you are having trouble letting go of. I think it is doing work. If four people cut the liner, then everything else on this page is a footnote — the $16 million on a job you first priced at $1.8, the two no-bid awards, one of them to a company owned by a man who gave a quarter of a million dollars to your committee, the second repair contract going back to the same contractor with no bids, the fifty-to-a-hundred-year coating that was peeling in front of the whole country thirteen days after you said it. If the contractor rushed it, all of that is the story, and it is yours.
Which brings me to the thing you said in April.
· WHAT YOU SAID, AND WHEN ·
April 23, on video: "I said, what we're going to do is, I'm going to call all three of these people that have worked for me in the past, doing swimming pools." The same day, at a separate event, you described a guy who is unbelievable at doing swimming pools, and the contractor who did your club pool twenty years ago. May 4: you said you had sent "the three best" to look at it. May 12, on Truth Social: "Also, I didn't give out the contract, 'Interior' did, to a contractor I did not know, and have never used before." The White House position, on the second contract: "This contract was awarded by the Department of Interior; the White House did not play any role in the selection process." Nineteen days between the first and the second. Both are on the record. Only one of them can be true.
I have read the video transcript more than once. You told the country you were going to call three people who had worked for you before, on your swimming pools. Nineteen days later you wrote that you did not give out the contract and did not know the contractor. Both statements are still up. I am not asking you to explain the second one — I understand why it exists. I am telling you that it is the reason the vandalism story now has to be true. You cannot concede the installation without reopening who chose the installer, and you already told everybody you did.
About the video you posted on Saturday. It is shot from a distance. There are workers standing a few feet away who never turn around. It is dated after the peeling was already on every front page in the country, and what it shows is people handling coating that had already come up. That is not four people destroying a national memorial. That is four people touching something that was already broken — which is a very ordinary and very human thing to do, and which is not a felony.
And there is one more thing, which I set aside twice and could not leave out. On May 4, standing in front of the fresh coating, before there was any damage in the world to account for, you said it was very strong — that if you had a knife you could not even cut it, so strong, so powerful. Seven weeks later you said vandals had opened it up for three hundred feet with a box cutter. Both of those cannot be true. It is either too tough for a knife or it comes apart under one. The tough version is the one that sells a $14.7 million renovation. The cuttable version is the one that explains the damage. You have needed it to be whichever one the day required, and to me that is the clearest thing on this page about what is actually going on here.
· THE KNIFE, AND THE GASH THAT GREW ·
May 4, standing in front of the new coating, before there was any damage to explain: "It's very strong. You couldn't — if you had a knife — I don't want to give anybody ideas… If you had a knife, you can't even cut it, so strong, so powerful." June 22, once there was: "You know, we have 100- … I think 290-, 300-foot slit right through it." And: "Probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind." Asked in that same appearance what the proof was: "Well, let's put it this way. When you have a 350 — I think it's 350, not 250 — a 350-foot slit from one end to the other, you think that's proof?" The number moved from 100 to 290 to 300 to 350 inside one press availability. It has since been described as 300 yards, which is 900 feet. June 24, posting a photograph: "This is the hard rubber surface — No Paint — Before the Vandals cut and pulled it apart!" And on Truth Social, that the gash "was purposefully and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night, to create such a condition." On the sentence you wanted: "years in jail," then "10 years." "These are very serious crimes having to do with the destruction of National Monuments." On the algae: "They did something to create the algae." Steven Chapra, a water quality expert, told reporters the pool as built was "the recipe for growing algae" all by itself — shallow, unflushed, nutrient-rich, and newly painted dark blue.
The Reflecting Pool has been failing since long before either of us. A 1986 engineering report found its structural system was going. Interior has said it leaks 16 million gallons a year. Nobody sensible thinks the state of that basin is your fault. But the $14.7 million coat of paint on the bottom of it is, and so is the calendar it was applied against, and so is what happened to four people's names in the meantime.
Timeline
Apr 3
Interior awards Atlantic Industrial Coatings a no-bid contract to seal and coat the basin in American flag blue. One to two weeks, as planned.
Apr 23
You say you are going to call three people who have done swimming pools for you in the past.
May 4
The coating is so strong that if you had a knife, you can't even cut it.
May 7
About $1.8 million. About two weeks.
May 12
You did not give out the contract, and did not know the contractor.
Jun 4
The new coating will last 50 to 100 years.
Jun 11
A National Park Service engineer emails that the coating failed from contractor overspray.
Jun 17–19
The peeling becomes national news. David Hearn is arrested June 19.
Jun 22
A 290-, 300-foot slit, probably a box cutter. By the end of the same availability it is 350 feet.
Jun 24
They should go to jail for 10 years. These are very serious crimes.
Jul 2
Pirro announces the grand jury indictment. He willfully destroyed property, she says.
Jul 5
Burgum: the same contractor does the repairs, and there will be no new bids.
Jul 20
A contractor inspection confirms overspray and delamination.
Jul 31
Pirro moves to dismiss. Charges against Hearn and three others are dropped.
Aug 1
You disagree 100 percent. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS.
Aug 3
She folded like an umbrella. She choked. It's a disgrace. The judge was extremely unfriendly to Jeanine.
So here is the ask, and it is smaller than you think.
Stop saying vandals. Not because I want the win — I would rather never write another word about a swimming pool. Say the contractor rushed it, because your own Justice Department, your own Park Service engineer, and your own inspection report all say that, and because a president who can say a hard true thing about a $16 million paint job is a president people will believe about something that matters more. Then call David Hearn. He is a man who represented this country at three Olympic Games, and for six weeks he was the guy who knifed the Lincoln Memorial. That was never true. You have the phone.
And leave Jeanine Pirro alone. She did the only thing on this entire page that anybody should be proud of.
— Michael
The Official Internet Press Secretary
Spotlight Dispatch · 45047 · August 4, 2026
michael@spotlightdispatch.com
Be sure to visit our Facebook page for updates and to connect.
★ The Hole
june 11 to june 19 is eight days. your government knew what happened to the pool before it took the man it blamed. four people were charged with a crime that the filing now says nobody committed. one of them is owed a phone call.
Related Coverage
Further Reading
Spotlight Dispatch