The Trump administration is spending at least $343,100 on video cameras to monitor several of President Donald Trump’s construction projects, federal records show, after the president falsely accused “vandals” of causing the widespread damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
The U.S. Park Police, a division of the Interior Department, last month leased mobile camera trailers from LiveView Technologies, which promises AI-powered efforts. The company has won other contracts from the Trump administration, including about $3 million to support ICE operations, according to federal records.
LiveView’s cameras were recently installed at Washington’s Memorial Circle, where Trump hopes to soon begin construction of a 250-foot-tall triumphal arch, and near statues by Arlington Memorial Bridge that Trump regilded this year.
U.S. Park Police previously installed cameras at the Reflecting Pool as early as June after several people were arrested on charges that they had vandalized the pool.
Prosecutors dropped those charges weeks later and blamed the pool’s damage on flawed installation work, but Trump has continued to claim that vandals damaged the site — and could do so again.
“We are watching very closely, and security cameras have been installed,” Trump on Monday wrote on Truth Social. The president also referenced damage to the grass of the nearby National Mall and what appeared to be large-scale etchings of an anti-Trump message.
An Interior Department spokesperson said the LiveView cameras were needed to protect the projects.
“Due to an increase in vandalism by leftist activists surrounding the Reflecting Pool earlier this year, cameras were set up to ensure that no more damage is done to this historic site,” the spokesperson said.
Spokespeople for the Interior Department and LiveView declined to respond to questions about how many cameras would be deployed and other details of the contract.
Democrats, who have been critical of Trump’s expansion of the Park Police, characterized the agency’s decision to set up cameras by the construction sites as wasteful.
“It’s a good example of how public agencies are just lighting taxpayer dollars on fire these days in service of Trump’s whims and lies,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (California), the top Democrat on a House committee that oversees the national parkland where the Reflecting Pool, the planned triumphal arch and other Trump projects are located.
Huffman called for transparency about how the administration is pursuing the president’s construction projects, vowing to scrutinize agencies’ spending on Trump’s projects and their use of outside contractors if Democrats retake the House in next month’s midterm elections.
“They will answer those questions when we hold the gavels, I promise you,” he said.
Some observers questioned the goal behind the deployment of cameras.
“I think there becomes a point where it’s going to be excessive,” said Mike Fox, a legal fellow in the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice, a libertarian-leaning think tank. “Are they really doing this because they actually need them, or are they doing this to try to score political points?”
Tony Irish, senior counsel for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, criticized the Interior Department for launching surveillance systems to “recognize, record and track” visitors and residents.
Trump has said that he regrets not putting up cameras earlier.
“The one mistake with the reflecting pond, they hadn’t put up the cameras yet,” Trump lamented in the Oval Office in August.
Maura Judkis contributed to this report.
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