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Trump’s Reflecting Pool witch hunt takes a new turn

On Wednesday morning, attorneys for Olympian David Hearn – who has been facing charges of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool – filed a motion to dismiss the case “with prejudice,” arguing that he fears President Donald Trump may try to come after him again.

This is according to Lawfare editor Roger Parloff, who tweeted a screenshot of the motion, explaining, “Reflecting Pool defendant David Hearn, responding to Judge Jeanine [Pirro’s] conduct after filing a motion to dismiss, seeks dismissal with prejudice. Trump’s [and Secretary of the Interior Doug] Burgum’s conduct after dismissal show case’s political motivation and danger of harassment and re-prosecution.”

In the motion, Hearn’s lawyers emphasize that the case was “motivated by political considerations,” noting that both Trump and Burgum have “publicly attacked” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s decision to file for dismissal after she realized the case was groundless. Hearn’s attorneys argue that the Department of Justice has “repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to seek or reinstate criminal charges to satisfy the president, irrespective of the law or facts.” In light of “this risk of harassment and bad faith,” they requested “dismissal with prejudice,” which would close the case permanently.

Trump’s case against Hearn has blown up in spectacular fashion in recent days, after Pirro was forced to admit that the evidence was clear: the Reflecting Pool damage was caused by installation failures rather than vandals. Trump was furious with this outcome, telling reporters that she “choked” and “folded like an umbrella,” and that he was “100 percent” certain the damage was due to vandalism.

In the latest motion, Hearn’s attorneys cite a National Parks Service assessment from before the indictment that contradicts Trump’s claims, noting preexisting peeling and damage at “numerous locations throughout the pool.” The assessment suggests that vandalism was “possible,” but that it came “after initial peeling.” This has been a sticking point in the case for weeks. In mid-July, the government’s own witnesses admitted that photos of the damage were taken before Hearn touched the water, drawing into question how he could have been the culprit. He has maintained that he did touch the water and torn pool liner, but only to examine preexisting damage.

Now, Hearn’s attorneys say that “all options are on the table” when it comes to seeking recourse for his arrest. According to the Guardian, “Hearn ‘has a number of potential remedies’ after being prosecuted in connection with pool damage now attributed to faulty work by a contractor, attorney Steven Levin said in a statement. Levin added that those could include ‘civil suits, bar referrals for the prosecutors involved, request for sanctions and reimbursement of attorneys’ fees and expenses,’ and requests for investigations by various government entities, including Congress.”

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Trump's Reflecting Pool fiasco triggers massive White House feud

US President Donald Trump’s renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has gone beyond his vision of refurbishing a site of national pride to perfection. In the past month, the reflecting pool has become yet another tool for Trump to exact political retribution against those standing in his way.

When the US$16 million job was completed in time for the July 4 celebrations of America’s 250th birthday, it was clear something was amiss.

The algae that had long plagued the pool had returned. And the sealant covering the bottom of the pool immediately began peeling.

Trump attributed the damage to vandals, and one man, David Hearn, a former Olympian, was arrested after he put his hand into the pool and examined a piece of coating that had become detached from the floor.

The Trump-appointed US attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, a former Fox News presenter, opened a full investigation. Hearn was promptly indicted for destruction of property.

Late last week, however, the case was turned on its head when Pirro moved to dismiss the charges against Hearn. Her filing stated the damage to the pool was not due to vandalism, but a “botched installation” by the contractor in a rush to complete the project before the anniversary celebration.

Trump went ballistic, accusing Pirro of “folding like an umbrella”. But the prosecutor was undeterred. This week, she dropped the charges against three other defendants accused of vandalising the pool.

And at a testy White House meeting with Trump, she held her ground, reportedly lashing out at Interior Secretary Doug Burgum for misleading the president about the evidence.

How judges and prosecutors are pushing back

The wider context here is the loyalty Trump expects and demands from his appointees and staff.

This was one of the strongest lessons he took from his first term, when Trump found himself repeatedly blocked or tightly managed by many in his inner circle, among them:

  • John Kelly, his chief of staff, who tried to keep Trump on a short leash and only lasted in the role for 17 months
  • General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who refused to send troops into US cities to quell protesters, and
  • Bill Barr, his attorney general, who told him he had definitively lost the 2020 presidential election.

In his second term, Trump has gone to extreme lengths to install Cabinet members who will be unswervingly loyal to him, as well as federal prosecutors who will follow his orders – and pursue cases against his enemies.

While Trump has maintained control over his Cabinet and largely kept the Republican Party in Congress in check, his attempts to manipulate or override the judicial system to get what he wants are increasingly being turned aside.

Consider his repeated attempts to prosecute James Comey, the former head of the FBI. A federal judge threw out the first case against Comey last year, saying Trump’s hand-picked prosecutor wasn’t lawfully appointed.

Under pressure from Trump, the Department of Justice indicted Comey again in May over a case involving seashells on a beach; Comey has requested a judge dismiss these charges, too.

Earlier this year, a grand jury also declined to indict six Democratic members of Congress, whom Trump accused of sedition after they posted a video reminding US service members they were obligated to refuse illegal orders.

In June, a Republican-appointed federal judge blocked the Trump administration from trying to subpoena Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. The judge called it a “blatantly unlawful and unethical use of the grand jury process”.

And last month, a Trump-appointed federal judge blocked the Department of Justice’s attempts to access the names and contact information of poll workers in the state of Georgia – part of Trump’s ongoing attempts to prove his 2020 election loss was rigged.

Trump: judges are ‘stupid people’

Trump has had far more success securing favourable rulings from the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court in his second term. According to legal experts, the court has considerably expanded the power of the presidency over the past 18 months.

Yet, the Supreme Court did not give Trump victories in two major cases this year over his tariff policy and his administration’s attempt to do away with birthright citizenship.

In the face of this growing opposition from the judicial branch, Trump has railed against judges and justices who “want to show that they’re independent”. He mocked their thinking:

‘I don’t care if Trump appointed me. I don’t care if he doesn’t make any difference to me. I’m voting against him.’ Because they want to show their independence. You know, stupid people.

Yet, this is precisely the role of the judiciary – it is meant to be one of the checks and balances in the US government. And right now, it is the independent judiciary – not Congress – that is curbing Trump’s excessive use of powers.

Trump may not continue to enjoy this imbalance of power for much longer. If the Democrats win control of the Senate and House of Representatives in the midterm elections, Congress will again provide another crucial check on his powers.

But Trump will continue to believe the reflecting pool has been vandalised, no matter what the evidence shows. And he will continue to go after his enemies, too. This may now include Pirro, who may not remain in her position for much longer.The Conversation

Bruce Wolpe, Non-resident Senior Fellow, United States Study Centre, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Trump Reflecting Pool lawyers just blew up their own case

Evidence presented by government prosecutors arguing against Olympian David Hearn, who stands accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, may have already blown the case. According to Lawfare senior editor Roger Parloff, evidence contained in the government’s original warrant provides obvious, photographic proof that he could not have vandalized the pool.

As Parloff posted on Wednesday, “Attys for Reflecting Pool defendant David Hearn say govt witness told govt that photos Hearn took showing damaged liner (published in WaPo, e.g.) were taken *before* he touched the water — drawing into question how he could’ve damaged it.” Parloff wrote this over a screenshot of one of the photos, which a caption says was taken just before his arrest and shows a partially detached piece of the pool liner.

So a government witness has already noted that the pictures were taken before he touched the water, and what’s more, writes Parloff, the government’s own seizure warrant for Hearn’s phone “admits that Hearn’s photos were taken before the touching.”

“In other words,” argues the defense, “Mr Hearn’s widely published photo proves that he caused no damage to the Reflecting Pool.”

This is a humiliating turn for President Donald Trump, who raged about the prosecution of alleged Reflecting Pool “vandals” who he claims caused tears in the pool liner and blooms of algae, despite providing no evidence. According to the Associated Press, “Hearn has said he reached inside the pool to examine the peeled sealant and let go of a chunk when he was told to by a park worker. He is accused of causing more than $1,000 in damage.”

“Every American should be alarmed about this prosecution,” said Hearn’s attorney after he pleaded not guilty at a hearing on Thursday. “It is not a crime to touch the Reflecting Pool.”

At the hearing, which the AP says was “packed” with spectators, “D.C. Superior Court Judge Carmen McLean did not require Hearn to be supervised by the court while he is free awaiting a trial. A status hearing was scheduled for Aug. 5. A prosecutor, Kevin Reddington, said the government wasn’t seeking any court supervision for Hearn, but just a ‘stay-away order’ without specifying in court where it wanted to keep Hearn away from. Mary Dohrmann, one of Hearn’s attorneys, urged the judge not to impose any conditions of court supervision, calling Hearn an ‘upstanding citizen and member of the community.’”

“The government’s evidence is weak,” she added.

Hearn’s attorneys have argued that the case is based on a “concocted narrative,” asserting that “this indictment reflects the administration’s effort to shift blame for their own failures. The justice system exists to determine facts, not to provide political cover.”

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Demands grow for facts on how Trump's Reflecting Pool lie was 'cooked up'

On Tuesday, following the dramatic collapse of President Donald Trump’s case against Olympian David Hearn and others accused of vandalising the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, top Senate Democrats on two committees that oversee the Interior Department demanded that the agency’s inspector general investigate how the vandalism lie was “cooked up” in the first place.

According to exclusive reporting by the Washington Post, “The Interior Department had publicly blamed damage to the pool’s new liner on ‘vandals,’ a claim echoed by Trump and prosecutors who pressed charges against several people. The Justice Department on Friday said that Interior officials did not share relevant internal information that indicated the problems were due to contractors’ mistakes and has dropped the cases.” Now Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) of the Environment and Public Works and the Energy and Natural Resources committees, respectively, called for an “immediate investigation” into whether Interior Department officials misled the president about the cause of the damage.

“Numerous questions remain: How was the vandalism lie cooked up? How did it get to President Trump’s desk? Or did it originate from the White House?” Whitehouse and Heinrich wrote to the inspector general’s office. In the letter, they demand to know “what employees of the Department of the Interior knew — and when they knew it — regarding the peeling of the coating and other engineering issues at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.” While Trump had been vocal about his demands for the prosecution of Hearn and others accused of vandalism, the Senators noted that the Interior’s own documentation acknowledged the damage was caused by “a rushed and flawed installation process, with repeated failures of the lining during the installation process, and extensive peeling of the lining throughout.”

As the letter mentions, Trump has repeatedly declared that vandals had cut a 250-foot-gash — at times increasing that number to 350 feet — using a “very sharp knife or razors," even though the drained pool later showed no evidence of this. And even after the Department of Justice found that the Interior knew the damage was caused by faulty installation, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum continued to push Trump’s already debunked claim, tweeting, “The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool.”

According to the Post, “A spokesman for the inspector general declined to comment on the letter. The inspector general, which is intended to be an independent watchdog of the agency’s actions, is not bound to open an investigation.”

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The latest smelly episode in Trump’s embarrassing Reflecting Pool saga

In recent months, President Donald Trump’s endeavor to clean the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has taken on an episodic quality as the project has raised controversy and encountered mounting problems. Now, a new odorous issue has been reported.

“As they drain it,” noted Joe Flood, “the Reflecting Pool is starting to smell.”

Over the weekend, Trump admitted that the pool would have to be drained to fix the peeling paint and algae blooms that have plagued his mission to have it “American Flag blue” in time for the 4th of July. While many have suggested that the no-bid contractor his administration secured to do the job could be to blame, Trump has his own theories.

According to the Guardian, “Trump acknowledged ‘real problems’ with the site, which he said he had examined himself, this week. He has not acknowledged any issues with the renovation he ordered, however. Instead, the president blamed the pool’s woes on ‘vandals’, which he claimed had taken ‘some form of knife or blade’ and delivered a 250ft gash into the pool’s facade. By Monday, when Trump was still posting about the site, this alleged damage had grown into a ‘300 foot long gash’. Reporters at the Washington Post who visited the pool on Sunday could see no evidence of such damage, it reported, despite Trump’s claims. Trump also claimed that unidentified vandals have poured ‘corrosive and destructive chemicals’ into the pool.”

No evidence has been provided of such claims, though as the Guardian notes, “Government workers were seen pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water to tackle the algae.”

Trump’s project dates back to April, when he announced that he’d hired a contractor to coat its granite basin for $1.5 million. That cost quickly exploded to $14 million, and by mid-June $16 million, and that was before the new draining and repairs to come. Early in the renovation, it was found that the White House had hired a no-bid contractor, and then last week, it was revealed that the company’s owner was in fact a Trump donor and neighbor of Mar-a-Lago who the president had once called a “fantastic man.” By that time, images of the pool turned bright green by algae had drawn no shortage of ridicule, and it was being reported that large flakes of paint or sealant were breaking loose.

The president then declared that anyone caught vandalizing the pool would be given a 10-year prison sentence, and since then several people have been arrested and cited for vandalizing the pool, though reporting has cast such allegations in a dubious light: “It’s not clear if any committed acts of vandalism. Washington Post reporters witnessed people interacting with police after pulling objects from the water. Peeling paint has been floating on the surface at times."

A three-time U.S. Olympian and canoeist says he was arrested after noticing a partly detached piece of the blue liner and reaching into the water to touch it. "I didn’t vandalize anything," David Hearn, who had been cycling, told the Washington Post. "I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs."

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Trump’s Mar-a-Lago neighbor owns company behind Reflecting Pool humiliation

On Friday, the New York Times revealed more about the company that secured a no-bid contract to clean the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and though the investigation has continued to reveal ties between the company and President Donald Trump, the White House insists these links have nothing to do with the decision to select the firm. This comes as enormous green algae blooms have concealed the American-flag blue Trump says he intended for the pool.

According to the New York Times, the contract for the endeavor “shows that the National Park Service bypassed the competitive-bidding process that is typically required, and gave a $1.7 million contract to the firm, Greenwater Services of Brookfield, Ohio. Federal contracting records show that firm’s ultimate owner is the J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust, led by John J. Cafaro, a donor to Mr. Trump and a neighbor to Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Florida. The water treatment company also listed Mr. Cafaro’s Palm Beach mansion as its address in Florida corporate records.” Cafaro is a “longtime Republican donor” whom Trump has described as a “fantastic man.”

Interior Department spokesperson Katie Martin claims that the administration wasn’t aware of Cafaro’s political stance when the contract was awarded, saying, “This company was selected because they had the expertise, work force and materials needed to complete the job in time.”

While several firms had expressed interest in the cleaning project, the Times writes that in April, the Park Service “gave the work directly to Greenwater Services, a company that federal records show had received only one other federal contract. The Park Service justified its decision to bypass competition by citing an exemption meant for urgent situations: It said there was no time to consider other offers because the system had to be installed in time for events celebrating the country’s 250th birthday.”

What’s more, this isn’t the only no-bid contractor fouled in the scandal. According to the Times, “Another no-bid contract for $14.7 million had been awarded to a Virginia firm, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, for the same reason of urgent need. That business was paid to spread blue waterproofing material on the pool’s concrete floor. That work, too, shows signs of potential trouble. On Thursday, a section of the pool’s new layer of blue waterproofing appeared to have detached from the bottom and floated to the pool’s surface.” Martin declined to comment on that.

As the Times reports, “Cafaro’s ties to Mr. Trump go back at least 10 years. In 2016, Mr. Trump boycotted a Republican debate and held a competing event, a televised fund-raiser for veterans causes. One of the major donors was Mr. Cafaro, who gave $50,000.”

“J.J. Cafaro from Florida and from Cleveland: He’s a man who made a lot of money in Cleveland, does a good job, and a fantastic man. J.J., thank you,” said Trump at the time.

Since then, records show that Cafaro has given Trump-related groups over $300,000. What’s more, Cafaro’s wife chaired a lavish International Red Cross Ball at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.

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Trump foe obliterates DOJ's reflecting pool vandalism charges

Olympian David Hearn will appear in court on Thursday morning alongside one of President Donald Trump's biggest legal foes: Norm Eisen.

One of the co-founders of CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington), Trump has raged about Eisen for years as he loses case after case against the former ethics czar. Trump once referred to Eisen as a “major sleazebag” and “the Lawfare King and Color Revolution Expert” in Truth Social posts. At one point, Trump even blasted CREW, complaining, “Everything I read is Norm Eisen.” According to Trump, “You don’t get much lower than him.”

Eisen responded by saying that it's clear Trump is obsessed with him.

Eisen has taken up a high-profile case in which the administration is accused of trying to make Hearn the "scapegoat" for their own failures around the Reflecting Pool.

This is the "latest scandal of scapegoating and blame shifting and the administration's own failures on the Reflecting Pool," Eisen said in a video chat with former prosecutor Joyce Vance. "They've charged, with a felony, our client with The Washington Litigation Group, my wonderful co-counsel Mary Dohrmann, Davy Hearn, the Olympic canoeist."

He asked Vance how, as a former prosecutor and former U.S. attorney, she would have handled something like this. She explained that in cases like this, she looks through the lens of someone who not only ran a U.S. attorney's office but also spent a decade prosecuting criminal cases.

In "a properly functioning DOJ," she said, something like this would have been investigated by the National Parks Service before being handed to the Justice Department. In her experience, the NPS typically handles things like smoking cannabis on federal lands, a relatively low-level felony. NPS doesn't "do big criminal cases," she said.

"Your job as a prosecutor is to consider whether that case is significant enough to merit becoming a federal felony," Vance continued. "This case doesn't pass the smell test on that ground, but it also has another major flaw, which is evidence."

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum appeared on CNN, where he was asked directly about the Reflecting Pool and asserted, "It didn't peel off. It was — it was — there was vandalism. There was box cutters. There have been seven arrests." At no point did police find a box cutter on Hearn, who was cycling down to the mall in his bicycle shorts and jersey.

A video from Emily Miller of the arrest shows Hearn talking about the pool scandal being "funny," and later he relayed that he accidently hit the hose from the giant cleaner.

Hearn has said publicly, “I did not remove, I did not damage, I did not rip, tear, break, destroy or harm any part of the Reflecting Pool."

According to him, he dipped his hand into the pool to feel the coating on the bottom, which was supposed to be "American Flag blue."

Vance explained that, unlike in many other cases, there was no grand jury that U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro went to for an indictment. They merely filed the case in superior court, which has "less rigorous standards." Pirro has failed to indict several people by going to grand juries in D.C.

In her press conference, Pirro alleged an NPS employee witnessed Hearn willfully and "violently" ripping up about two square feet of the pool's newly installed liner using his bare hands. She asserted to reporters questioning her about evidence, “He damaged the pool! He damaged this pool!”

Pirro's charging document also doesn't say anything about "violently" doing anything. It claims Hearn “ripped a piece of the recently installed blue pool sealant” or “pulled up and removed the bottom liner with both hands."

Miller's video shows Hearn took off one of his padded cycling gloves to put his hand in. He pulled his hand out of the pool and put the glove back on in the video.

"The U.S attorney should have stepped in and said, folks we have a lot bigger fish to fry," Vance said. "But even if this case was an important one, it doesn't have the evidence. I mean, Norm, that's my issue with this case. I just don't see how the government proves its case. I suspect that they'll do everything that they can to keep it from going to trial they've made their splash indicting the case now they're going to try to stay as far away from a courtroom as they can."


Joyce Vance and Norm on coffee with the contrarians by Joyce Vance

A recording from Joyce Vance and Norman Eisen's live video

Read on Substack
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The plot to protect Trump’s wounded ego is unraveling: analysis

President Donald Trump's renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has been a humiliating disaster. As lawyer Norm Eisen alleged, Trump tried to save face by scapegoating his client, David Hearn, and claiming that vandals were responsible for the failed installation of the liner he decided the pool needed.

As Greg Sargent explained for The New Republic, things are about to get much worse.

Sargent spoke with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who is likely to become the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee if Democrats take over Congress after November. Raskin wants to know what happened and who lied.

“Judiciary Democrats will investigate who lied, who buried the evidence, and who decided to threaten an American citizen with prison simply to protect Trump’s wounded feelings and continuing corruption,” Raskin told Sargent. “Participants in this frame-up will be held to account.”

U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro, dismissed charges against Olympian David Hearn after the government's evidence made it clear that the damage being blamed on Hearn was there before Hearn was. At one point, Trump even tried to blame ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl for "trying to rip the rubber off." Trump decided that his pool couldn't have been a failure attributed to his project. He needed someone to blame.

Sargent said, "This was surely understood by Pirro and Burgum as a command to make it true that vandalism caused the renovation’s failure."

Pirro's big press conference announcing Hearn as the new target was based on the information the Department of the Interior gave her, not based on an actual investigation by law enforcement. So, her announcement that Hearn was being indicted and that there was "tremendous evidence” of his guilt didn't come from evidence. Pirro was ultimately forced to admit that the prosecutors from the Department of the Interior collected evidence showing that the lining failures came from a "botched" installation and not individuals. It was a humiliating blow for Trump.

So, there is a larger question about how Pirro was able to secure an indictment from the Grand Jury Hearn on July 2 when there was no evidence to prove his guilt and what the Trump administration did behind the scenes to secure the indictment. Pirro blames Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, saying that he intentionally misled her office about the evidence they had.

As Sargent explained, "But under ethics guidelines, prosecutors aren’t supposed to bring indictments unless they really think the charges are supported. Shouldn’t Pirro have looked more skeptically at this “evidence” before throwing the book at Hearn?"

“The notion that they did not know that there was a botched, rushed renovation of the Reflecting Pool does not hold water,” Eisen told Sargent.

Unlike other cases where Trump has targeted someone unfairly, the case is either dropped or thrown out, and the grateful victim tries to move on with their life. That's not happening this time. Eisen and Hearn want to know what the grand jury was told to get the indictment because it clearly wasn't true. Someone had to have lied to the grand jury, and there are penalties for that.

Eisen explained that instead of dropping the case and moving on, the case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning prosecutors could charge Hearn again later. So, they're still fighting for Hearn's innocence, and they want to know what the grand jury was told.

Former federal prosecutor Daniel R. Alonso told Sargent, "Courts are generally very reluctant to grant access to grand jury transcripts." In this case, however, Alonso said, Hearn has "more than a colorable argument."

Eisen may be able to catch the administration in a lie that tracks back to the president himself. It would be a humiliating blow.

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Trump putting MAGA 'puppet' in charge of probe into Reflecting Pool fiasco

U.S. President Donald Trump's foes have been consistently critical of his makeover proposals for the Washington, DC area, from a White House ballroom to the Kennedy Center to a triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery. And Trump is drawing scathing criticism for the damage inflicted on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Now, according to the Daily Beast, a major Trump loyalist — Project 2025 author Dennis Kirk — will likely be in charge of any possible investigation of the "Reflecting Pool fiasco."

"Donald Trump is planning to put one of his most reliably right-wing goons in charge of any eventual investigation into his botched renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool," journalist William Vaillancourt reports in the Daily Beast. "The 80-year-old president personally oversaw the $16 million project to refurbish the DC landmark, only to watch as the waters turned slimy green and the pool lining split. He quickly blamed the damage on vandalism, even though his handpicked DC prosecutor couldn't make any charges stick and passed the blame to Doug Burgum's Interior Department, which was in charge of the refurb."

Trump, Vaillancourt notes, has nominated Kirk "to run the Interior Department's Inspector General Office — the watchdog that will oversee any investigation."

In 2024, Project 2025 was the Heritage Foundation's in-depth blueprint for a second Trump administration. Trump, during the 2024 presidential race, distanced himself from the highly controversial document. But critics countered that Project 2025 was written by some of Trump's closest allies — including Kirk.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) is a scathing opponent of the Kirk nomination, attacking him as a "fake and fraudulent watchdog."

In an August 5 post on his website, Huffman said of Kirk, "Each and every thing this political puppet does will be in service of Donald Trump. This man helped write the Project 2025 playbook for seizing control of the federal workforce. Now, he sits inside the office charged with rooting out corruption at Interior, the department that manages our national parks, public lands, Tribal programs, and now under Trump, gold-slathered statues and a botched Reflecting Pool renovation. That same office is weighing serious ethics investigations into senior officials in this administration. It's no surprise the White House suddenly wants its own man inside the one place that Trump's cronies still have reason to fear."

Aaron Weiss, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, is lambasting the Kirk nomination as well — noting the firing of for Interior Department Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt.

Weiss, in an official statement, warned, "Interior's watchdog was fired, left vacant for 18 months, and is now hosting one of the architects of Project 2025. At least five investigation requests from members of Congress are sitting in that office right now, and its integrity has been compromised. Congress cannot outsource its constitutional oversight duty to an inspector general’s office taken over by the White House."

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Swimming pool expert knows who 'planted the algae' in Trump’s Reflecting Pool disaster

A long-time expert in swimming pools knows the culprit behind the Reflecting Pool "vandalism" that caused an ongoing algae bloom.

For the past several weeks, CNN has welcomed on "Swimming Pool Steve," a second-generation pool builder who has a YouTube channel dedicated to explaining aspects of swimming pools and hot tubs.

Speaking to host Boris Sanchez on Monday, Steve Goodale said there would always be an algae problem in the Lincoln Memorial's Reflecting Pool.

"Let's start with the algae leak theory," Sanchez began. "What is more likely: that someone planted this algae or that it occurred and spread naturally?"

"Well, somebody definitely planted the algae and it was the very first bird that landed in the water," said Goodale. "You know, in an open-air environment like this, there's no stopping the algae from coming. It's going to be in the water. It's just how are you going to deal with it knowing that it will be expected."

The way to fix it, he explained, is a multi-pronged solution: the pool must be drained and the immediate remediation would likely follow. The algae problem is likely to be back-burnered, he said, while they figure out the problem with the liner.

Monday morning a baby duck was found dead in the pool's water, prompting Sanchez to question whether the new chemicals put in the pool could be the culprit.

"It would really come down to a matter of concentration," said Goodale. "And again, we're talking about, you know, 6.5 million gallons of water or more. So, it would take an awful lot of product to get to dangerous levels of contamination here. It's why hydrogen peroxide would be commonly used for an open-air, clear water environment like this, because it is kind of the safer of the options. It's why we don't use something like chlorine, which wouldn't be as safe for the wildlife."

He also passed along his sympathies for the tragic death of the baby duck.

Sanchez then asked about Trump's claims of vandalism and the "300-foot gash" that was carved into the liner. Goodale explained that the material used is one that would require considerable equipment to produce the gash Trump described.

"You know, in my experience, and, you know, when I heard that it had been vandalized as well, my reaction was surprise as I really tried to understand the mechanism of damage that would cause this kind of vandalism," he said.

Goodale said it would be noticeable and require advanced equipment like power tools.

"This is a robust, strong puncture-proof material," Goodale said of the lining installed by Virginia-based contractor Atlantic Industrial Coatings. "That's why it was likely chosen for this application. It's why it's used in commercial and industrial applications. So it would take, absolutely, a concerted effort. I don't know exactly — what it would take, but it would take a concerted effort to cause significant damage like that."

In an earlier conversation, CNN reporter Manu Raju called on the White House to release footage of the vandalism that caused the gash.

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Should the White House be held accountable for the Reflecting Pool disaster?

Should the White House be held accountable for the Reflecting Pool disaster?

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