’10 Year Prison Sentence’: Trump Warns Reflecting Pool Vandals of Severe Consequences

(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

President Donald Trump offered a warning that there’s a “10 year prison sentence” awaiting vandals who desecrate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Monday.

Over the weekend, authorities began arresting what it characterized as vandals. Some tourists bragged online that they took pieces of the  pool coating with them as souvenirs. One man arrested was a 67-year-old three-time Olympian who denied the charge of “destruction of government property.”

“Of the MANY Statues and Fountains that we rebuilt, renovated, cleaned, and fixed, the only one that was Vandalized was the Reflecting Pool, which is being taken care of, ASAP!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump has been blaming mysterious vandals for gashing the pool’s new American flag blue coating, and also mentioned the huge “86 47” someone burned into the grass on the National Mall.

“It has been given a 300 foot long gash, chemicals have been illegally placed in the water, and the beautiful new grass field has been destroyed with a gigantic 86 47 chemically carved into it (Probably inspired by Dirty Cop, James Comey!),” Trump wrote. “Please remember that there is a 10 year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things – Which will be fully enforced! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT.”

On Saturday, Trump claimed the “gash” was 250-feet long, and on Sunday, he claimed that he personally inspected the pool’s condition himself.

Trump awarded a $1.7 million no-bid contract for the project, but the cost soon topped more than $14 million. Shortly after Trump crowed that the pool project was finished, bright green algae began flourishing with a vengeance, causing U.S. Park Service employees to pour gallons of hydrogen peroxide into the pool. Shortly after that, the blue coating began peeling off in sheets.

Trump had bragged that the blue coating would last for “40 or 50 years” and “there’ll be no leaks, there’ll be no anything.” But The New York Times warned in a piece from May that Trump was ignoring the underlying problem, which was fixing the pool’s leaky pipes.

Experts told the Times that unless the pipes were fixed,“the algae could come back.”

“If that happens, the pool’s newly waterproofed blue floor could again be invisible under a layer of green murk,” the report said.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!