President Donald Trump’s claims of vandalism at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool have been disputed by his own administration. The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, has stated that the damage to the pool was due to shoddy workmanship, not vandalism.
Administration Contradicts Trump
The administration’s contradiction of Trump’s claims comes as the president is struggling to convince Americans of his version of events. Trump has historically engaged in exaggeration, but this was a moment in which he wanted a U.S. citizen, Olympic canoeist David Hearn, to be indicted, tried and possibly imprisoned for the act of touching a chunk of sealant in the already damaged pool.
The White House said that Trump was not aware ahead of time that Pirro’s office would drop the charges. Trump says he told Pirro he was ‘not happy’ about her decision and that a video backed him up even though it is not clear from the footage shot at a distance that any property destruction occurred.
Expert Analysis
Rice University professor Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian, said that Trump’s behavior is a form of intimidating employees to be in group-think. ‘If you work for me, you triple down,’ Brinkley said. ‘Never disagree with the boss, even in a small fractional way.’
Original reporting: Texarkana Gazette — read the source article.
