1. United States
2. Ariz.
3. Letter

At Trump’s direction, the Department of Justice charged and prosecuted several individuals—-including a former Olympic athlete—-with criminal vandalism of the Reflecting Pool he paid $20 million to update in no-bid contracts. Both the President and lawyers at DOJ insisted that damage to the Reflecting Pool were caused by criminal malfeasance and specifically attributed those acts to visitors to our nation’s capitol attractions. Now, a 75-page “failure analysis” by Atlantic Coating Inspection reveals that the pool’s coating failed in 85 places, attributable to a botched installation of the liner and a rush to refill the pool before materials were fully set, at the express demand of the President. The huge number of failure points, coupled with the acknowledged culpability of the installation team and the impetus for rushing at the behest of Trump himself, makes it clear that both the president and the attorneys at DOJ would have known with even cursory due diligence that the individuals they publicly maligned and then prosecuted were not responsible for damage to the Reflecting Pool. Nonetheless, they put these people into legal jeopardy, defamed them, and cost them legal fees to defend themselves. I urge you to investigate how DOJ came to act at Trump’s behest to double down on the damage he had already done and to cover up for what he had already done to this national monument.