Federal prosecutors moved to dismiss vandalism charges on July 31
The company hired to renovate the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool acknowledged in internal documents that “human oversight” and flaws in the repair plan caused the pool’s newly installed blue liner to peel and tear, according to documents reviewed by the New York Times.
The acknowledgment from Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the Virginia-based contractor awarded a $14.7 million no-bid contract for the work, directly contradicts President Donald Trump’s repeated public claims that vandals armed with knives or box cutters tore apart the pool’s “American flag blue” liner.
Atlantic first acknowledged its mistakes in a 14 August report and provided additional details in early September, according to the documents. As a result of “human oversight,” the company said, crews failed to spray enough primer to properly bond the liner’s layers in certain places.
The documents also show that Atlantic blamed a flawed design plan for additional damage. The design called for two chemicals to be used in separate layers of the liner even though the products ultimately proved incompatible. The chemical sprayed on top became hotter than the material below it could tolerate, the company said, causing the material underneath to blister and separate. Atlantic said it had not anticipated that reaction because combining the two products in that manner was “very uncommon.”
The documents challenge the account Trump has offered publicly for months. On Truth Social last month, Trump acknowledged that the contractor had taken shortcuts while racing to complete the project for its 4 July opening. “As with many jobs, there was also some contractor error done by rushing the job,” Trump wrote, claiming that the damage caused by those mistakes was limited to “a very small area” and was “relatively inconsequential.” The president has not backed off his vandalism claims.
The federal legal picture has also shifted. The Justice Department charged several people with vandalizing the pool in early July, but prosecutors began moving to dismiss those cases on 31 July. A federal court filing said information later supplied by the Interior Department showed the damage was caused by a flawed installation and the rush to finish the project ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations on 4 July, not vandalism.
The White House referred questions about the contractor’s report to the Interior Department. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Interior Department did not directly address Atlantic’s admission but said the company was “contractually obligated” to remedy the repairs “and is well on its way to doing so.” The spokesperson continued to blame “major vandalism” for the damage.
Atlantic Industrial Coatings did not immediately return a request for comment, the Guardian reported.
Atlantic was awarded the $14.7 million no-bid contract in spring 2026 to repaint and waterproof the pool’s concrete floor. The approach had not previously been tested and was designed in part by the general manager of one of Trump’s golf clubs, according to the Times.
The renovation was carried out on an accelerated schedule as the administration pushed to have the reflecting pool completed before the nation’s 250th birthday on 4 July. Atlantic has said it would repair the pool again under the project’s warranty.