President Trump met with Jeanine Pirro at the White House on Monday, hours after saying that she had “choked” when she concluded that the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was not the work of vandals, as the president has claimed.
Ms. Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., arrived at the White House on Monday afternoon and was taken to meet with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting. She was not fired by Mr. Trump, nor did she offer her resignation in that meeting, according to two people briefed on the outcome.
Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, was also at the White House when she arrived. Mr. Burgum has in recent days joined Mr. Trump in railing against Ms. Pirro’s decision to drop charges against David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist who was accused of pulling up a two-square-foot piece of the pool’s lining. Both men assert that the damage to the pool has been the work of vandals and not “the result of a botched installation and not vandalism,” as Ms. Pirro indicated in a Friday court filing.
The decision to drop the charges set Ms. Pirro — a longtime ally and loyal appointee of a president — on a collision course with Mr. Trump, who has made sure to inflict consequences on people within his orbit who contradict his claims. In her filing, Ms. Pirro openly undermined Mr. Trump’s narrative that the Reflecting Pool’s peeling liner was caused by people slashing its coating with knives.
Speaking earlier Monday in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump grew angry when asked whether he had spoken with Ms. Pirro about her decision. He went on to say that he believed that Ms. Pirro was intimidated by an “unfriendly” and “vicious” judge while pursuing a vandalism charge, and he lashed out at a reporter when asked whether he was reconsidering her role. He later ignored a question directly asking whether he was considering firing her.
“I guess she choked,” Mr. Trump said. “I don’t know what the hell happened.”
The president said that he believed she “made a mistake” — echoing his initial reaction to the decision — and reiterated his claim that “there was vandalism.”
In her filing, Ms. Pirro sought to dismiss a felony charge against Mr. Hearn. She said that her prosecutors had been misled by the Interior Department, which had awarded a no-bid contract to a first-time government contractor to repair the landmark.
In other words, Ms. Pirro’s filing confirmed what Mr. Trump had dismissed for weeks when he tried to convince the public that any problems that crept up during the renovations — from algae blooms to peeling liner — were a result of vandalism and not shoddy contract work.
Prosecutors in Washington are also dropping charges against three more defendants who had been accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool. Along with Mr. Hearn, prosecutors moved to drop charges against three others: Justin Carreno, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Cameron Thiers, who all were charged with destruction of property less than $1,000.
Norman L. Eisen, one of Mr. Hearn’s attorneys, said in a statement released shortly after the filing that the charges against Mr. Hearn amounted to abuse of government power.
“The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim,” he said on Friday. “The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology.”
But in the Oval Office on Monday, Mr. Trump said that the real miscarriage of justice was Ms. Pirro’s decision to backtrack.
“I was disappointed with Jeanine Pirro, really disappointed with Jeanine Pirro,” he said. “She folded like an umbrella, and people get away with things. It’s a disgrace.”
Mr. Trump personally visited the site of the Reflecting Pool renovations, praising it as one of his proudest beautification projects, which would serve as an iconic complement to his July 4 speech. On the holiday, Mr. Trump announced that while the “pool looks great, despite all it went through with the Vandal Thugs,” the administration would “quickly drain and fix the damage done right after this big weekend.”
But on Monday, Mr. Trump appeared for the first time to acknowledge that he was unhappy with the job, which he has always held was more economical and durable than any attempted renovation by other presidents. He maintained on Monday that of his projects, “one of the biggest jobs” was the Reflecting Pool, adding, “We did a great job.”
“So now I’m not saying I was 100 percent thrilled with the contractor, but the contractor was rushing,” he said. “We wanted to get it open for July 4, and we got it done. But in addition, there was vandalism.”
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