Trump's Reflecting Pool Cover-Up Totally Backfires
Trump thought he found his fall guy for his botch of the Reflecting Pool, but the scheme has crumbled and backfired.
Every cover-up needs someone to take the fall. Donald Trump knew he had botched the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, but because the current president is incapable of taking responsibility for his mistakes, he had to find someone to blame.
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Trump thought he had his person in Olympian Danny Hearn, who made the mistake of picking up a piece of the peeling liner of the Reflecting Pool to examine it. Trump immediately screamed vandal, and his US Attorney for Washington, D.C. filed criminal charges against Hearn.
The charges were later dropped as the US Attorney admitted that the damage came from contractor error, and suggested that Trump’s Department of the Interior had lied to the US Attorney, or at minimum misled the office.
Trump has stuck to his vandalism story, but nobody is buying.
The episode has come full circle as Trump and his Reflecting Pool project are now under investigation.
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has launched an investigation into Trump and the Reflecting Pool.
Raskin wrote questions to DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro:
DOJ’s abrupt abandonment of its prosecution, paired with President Trump’s and Secretary Burgum’s decision to circle the wagons around their debunked and ridiculous conspiracy theories, raise a host of profoundly troubling questions. Why didn’t your factual assertions about the case hold water? Did DOJ prosecutors knowingly bring a bogus indictment? Did DOI withhold key evidence to blame the disastrous pool renovation on an innocent man?
Raskin also wants to know about Trump’s involvement.
