The Interior Department added $6.2 million to the no-bid contract for repairs to the Lincoln Memorial pool late last week.
Atlantic Industrial Coatings was hired to repair leaking joints between the pool’s concrete slabs, waterproof the pool’s bottom and paint it a shade called “American flag blue.”Credit…Al Drago for The New York Times
President Trump said that his handpicked contractor would charge only $1.8 million to repair the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and paint it blue.
The actual cost is now more than seven times that, after the Interior Department nearly doubled the size of the contract late last week, federal records show.
On Friday, the Interior Department added $6.2 million to the contract’s previous cost, saying it now planned to pay $13.1 million to a Virginia firm called Atlantic Industrial Coatings. President Trump said he chose that company to repair the landmark because the firm had worked on the swimming pools at his golf club in Sterling, Va.
The government awarded that firm a no-bid contract last month, bypassing the requirement to seek competing offers by saying that the situation was so urgent that any delay would cause “serious injury” to the government. The government has not publicly said what that injury would have been.
Instead, it has cited Mr. Trump’s desire to get the work done before the country’s 250th birthday on July 4.
Public contracting records do not say why the contract’s cost increased so sharply on Friday. Katie Martin, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, said that the higher price “reflects the effort necessary to expedite the timeline of completing the leak prevention coating project — more people, more materials, more equipment and longer hours ahead of our 250th.”
Atlantic Industrial Coatings did not respond to questions about the increase.
But government documents obtained by The New York Times show that the contract’s current value matches, down to the dollar, an offer submitted to the government by Atlantic Industrial Coatings in the middle of last month. That offer included a 20 percent profit margin, the documents show.
Competitive bidding laws aim to ensure that the government is getting a fair price from its vendors.
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“Every day that the resurfacing continues, the historic character of the Reflecting Pool is being further and fundamentally altered,” a lawsuit filed Monday said.Credit…Al Drago for The New York Times
The contractor was hired to repair leaking joints between the pool’s concrete slabs, waterproof the pool’s bottom, and paint it a shade called “American flag blue.”
The pool has also been troubled for decades by leaks and algae blooms that turn its water green.
On Monday, a nonprofit dedicated to landscape architecture filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington seeking to halt the paint job. The Cultural Landscape Foundation said that the Trump administration had ignored a law requiring advance scrutiny of projects that alter historic landmarks.
The foundation, based in Washington, said in its lawsuit that “every day that the resurfacing continues, the historic character of the Reflecting Pool is being further and fundamentally altered.”
David A. Fahrenthold is a Times investigative reporter writing about nonprofit organizations. He has been a reporter for two decades.
Notice at the end The Majority Report crew plays a clip of all of tRump’s hateful rhetoric after the White House spokesperson blasts Democrats for hate speech inciting violence, which was the democrats telling the truth about tRump. Hugs
On a personal note I have allergy shots this morning. Hugs
The only reason tRump believes this and what makes it true is the republicans in charge of congress refuse to stand up against his illegal actions. They are either scared of tRump’s goons / gang thugs, or they are compromised with something tRump / Russia has over them, or they have been bought and paid for by Russia. No matter what they refuse to act against what tRump administration is doing and the democrats can’t because they are not in charge of congress right now. However if the democrats get at least the house then they can challenge tRump in court and force him to act with in the laws of the nation.
And all the things the republicans are quiet on now because it is trump doing them, watch how fast they get their voices back and how loud they screech when a democrat becomes president. If a Democratic Party president tried to with hold money, declare a way without congress approval, or demanded private companies, universities, or media enforce liberal polices watch the republicans suddenly wake up and lose their minds and shit their pants. Fox entertainment would be running a non-stop screaming host on every show about how horrible and evil it was. Hugs
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Air Force One on Nov. 16, 2025.
President Donald Trump has every reason to believe he’ll never be called to account for his actions.
He managed to skate on several impeachments and a host of felony convictions. He was allowed to return to office despite his part in an attempt to halt the peaceful transfer of power to his successor. The Supreme Court, a constitutionally enshrined backstop on his power, opted to give him blanket immunity for any number of crimes.
Still, it’s shocking to hear the president openly admit that no one in the government could stop him. And that’s exactly what he did in an interview with the New York Times that was shared on Thursday.
Pressed about the checks on his presidential power following a shocking raid on that ended in the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump said he’s constrained by nothing but his own sense of right and wrong.
“There is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,” he said.
Trump also said that he didn’t “need international law” because he’s “not looking to hurt people.”
The outlet asked Trump to consider the precedent he was setting via his arrest of Maduro. They wondered if China might see a justification to take similar actions against Taiwanese leadership.
“This was a real threat,” he said of Venezuela. “You didn’t have drugs pouring into China. You didn’t have all of the bad things that we’ve had. You didn’t have the jails of Taiwan opened up and the people pouring into China.”
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