Litigants Ask To Check Reflecting Pool For ‘Sabotage’
Make America Green Again. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
After spending the evening off blathering about the six-year election, the president got up and started free association blather about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
The less subtle metaphor of the universe is once again revealing its dirty and corrupt interior. The monument was drained again to repair the “blue American flag” liner, which began to visibly separate from the pool shortly after Trump’s pool boys rolled it over — and the hydrogen peroxide they dumped in there to kill the algae bloom didn’t help. Ditto for the presidential motorcade passing over it as the epoxy was curing.
The president insists that the pool was sabotaged by communist saboteurs, presumably ninjas with magical powers to avoid the surveillance of the many cameras that train in the pool around the clock.
“The slopes were 300 yards long, and the floor of the pool was cut and then pulled up, with great force, by these thugs,” he. scratch. “These state-hating buffoons must pay a heavy price for the damage done. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Until now, the pool is fenced off for the public. An FBI forensics team was out there on Wednesday tried to gather evidence to back up the president’s claims, but according to an investigative report by the Washington Post, the damage is fairly neatly lined with epoxy seams and extends across the center of the pool.
Damn, those ninjas are tricky!
On July 2nd, US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro announced that they had caught one of the culprits, David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist – who is kind of like a ninja! He has been charged with vandalism in DC Superior Court and will likely seek disclosure of the alleged damage he caused. But in the meantime, there is a pending civil lawsuit where the plaintiffs are also seeking a better view of the pool.
Until this week, the Cultural Landscape Foundation’s lawsuit was mostly about paperwork — specifically, National Park Service documents he didn’t do before another national monument was started. TCLF unsuspecting The Interior Department in the spring argued that the NPS skipped the historic preservation review required before changing a landscape listed on the National Register, as well as the required environmental review, all so the pool’s gray pool could be turned blue in time for Donald Trump’s July 4th holiday. The government insists the $15 million teardown of a century-old waterproofing system was either an emergency repair or a routine replacement that it is exempt from consideration. Especially, a sworn statement filed in the case by Frank Lands, NPS Deputy Director of Operations, does not repeat Trump’s claims that the cuts were “300 yards.” Instead, Lands notes that “US Park Police responded to an NPS report of damage to the reflecting pool, including a seal over foam adhesive that had been cut with a sharp knife or razor blade and destruction of delaminating surface material.”
Was the NPS report accurate? Lands doesn’t say, though he seems to admit that the line was already “destroyed” before any of the saboteurs showed up. But TCLF aims to find OUTSIDE!
Citing this “unique but temporary opportunity for plaintiffs to collect and preserve evidence that may be relevant to this case,” the plaintiff is asking Judge Carl Nichols to “allow members of plaintiffs’ counsel team (including any investigators and/or experts) temporary access to the sidewalk surrounding the Reflecting Pool to preserve that limited state of evidence in the future case.”
TCLF argues that the government has made representations about the condition of this pool and since the pool is full of water and algae, whatever is actually there is gone. Rule 34 allows a court to order a field inspection, and federal judges in DC routinely grant this type of request when there is a real risk that evidence could be lost or even destroyed.
“Defendants are apparently attempting to shift blame for the defects in the Pool Basin from their misuse of the resurfacing project,” they continue. “Plaintiffs must be permitted to obtain their evidence regarding defendants’ factual assertions before defendants amend and permanently sever that evidence.”
The Trump administration’s plan was clearly to seek pardons after the fact, rather than prior permission as required by statute. He seems to have worked with the East Wing of the White House. But here, his own disability can get in the way, as the “destructive” reflecting pool is definitely a fact. AND– fulfill
Liz Dye produces Law and Chaos Sub-stack AND podcast. You can subscribe by clicking the logo:
