An F.B.I. evidence-gathering team visited the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Wednesday afternoon after the landmark was drained so that crews could repair peeling sections of its newly installed blue lining.
Photos taken by a New York Times photographer showed people wearing F.B.I. insignia and standing on the dry, grime-covered pool floor. They appeared to be documenting the scene in detail, with some using laser-scanning and measuring equipment. A spokesperson for the F.B.I. said that the team was assisting the U.S. Park Police in investigating damage to the pool.
The Trump administration spent more than $16 million to repair the century-old pool this year, giving out no-bid contracts to improve its filtration system and to apply a layer of waterproofing across the pool’s 2,000-foot-long concrete floor. The contracts were rushed through, bypassing normal procedures, so the pool would be ready for the country’s 250th birthday on July 4.
But problems quickly appeared. Algae blooms turned the water bright green. And sections of the lining began to peel from the bottom, floating near the pool’s surface.
President Trump has blamed both problems on vandals.
In social-media posts this week, he said the pool’s lining had been cut with a knife or box cutter.
“The slashes were 300 yards long, and the floor of the pool was cut and then pulled upward, with great force, by these thugs,” Mr. Trump wrote.
But so far, the Trump administration has not provided much evidence for those claims.
The National Park Service made a police report about vandalism on June 9, shortly after the work was completed. But that report described cuts in a different part of the pool, a strip of gray caulking around the pool’s edge. It did not mention damage to the blue lining that covers its broad floor, though the Interior Department said later that the blue section was “disturbed.”
In addition, the Justice Department has charged at least four people with crimes, accusing them of removing pieces of the pool’s lining. But the accounts of those incidents by prosecutors make it clear that they were not the original cause of the problems with the liner: All of the incidents happened days after the liner was first seen peeling up.
The most serious charges were filed against a former U.S. Olympian, David Hearn, who was charged with a felony, accused of damaging a two-square-foot section of the pool. He has pleaded not guilty and said he merely touched a section of the lining that had already detached.
The Interior Department, which oversees the Reflecting Pool, did not respond to questions sent Wednesday evening about the F.B.I.’s visit.
Mr. Trump initially said that he had chosen the contractor that applied the pool’s blue lining himself, because the company had worked on the pool at one of his golf clubs. The president later reversed himself and said he did not know the contractor.
The pool has been drained slowly over the last few days, leaving behind a coating of dirt and debris that made it difficult to judge how much of the lining needs repair. The contractor that applied the liner, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, has said that the problems affected only a “very small part” of the pool’s floor. The company said on its website that it intended to repair the pool as part of the warranty.
Zach Montague contributed reporting.
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