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Iona Cleave
US President Donald Trump handed out a multimillion-dollar no-bid contract to his own “pool guy” to paint Washington’s reflecting pool “American flag blue”.
In his latest beautification project of the capital, Trump has been accused of using special powers to hand-pick a company to hastily begin work on the memorial to finish it in time for the country’s 250th birthday.
“You’re going to end up with a beautiful, beautiful reflecting pool, the way it’s supposed to be,” Trump said in April as he announced the plans. “Much better than it ever was, actually.”
He added: “I have a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools … He looked at it. He called me up. He said, ‘Sir, we can do something on it.’ ”
The colour of the 620-metre-long Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is Trump’s most recent fixation as he embarks on a hefty makeover of Washington, ordering an array of costly building projects and refurbishments.
According to administration officials, Trump used an exemption designed to prevent “serious injury, financial or other, to the government” to hand out the $US6.9 million ($9.5 million) contract, The New York Times reported.
“This project is now being completed at ‘Trump speed’ to ensure the iconic landmark is totally restored ahead of the 250th celebrations,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesman, told the outlet.
It was awarded to Atlantic Industrial Coatings on April 3, a company that has never had a federal contract but had renovated a pool on Trump’s Virginia golf course.
Since Trump’s return to office, he has been determined to leave a lasting imprint on Washington, a city where historic infrastructure is considered sacred.
Over the past year, Trump has bulldozed the East Wing to make way for a 8360 square-metre ballroom.
He has added his name to the facades of the US Institute of Peace and the Kennedy Centre, which he plans to close for a two-year renovation. His face now adorns a banner at the Department of Justice’s headquarters, and he is pushing for a 76-metre-tall triumphal arch near Arlington Cemetery.
Trump’s next project is likely to be East Potomac Park, home to an affordable, accessible public golf course, which he intends to turn into a “championship-level course”.
Last week, the White House revealed it would cost taxpayers at least $US7.5 million to follow through on Trump’s plan to paint the granite Eisenhower Executive Office Building white.
Critics argue he is treating government infrastructure like his own personal portfolio instead of assets owned by American citizens and wasting taxpayers’ money on a personal vanity project.
Democrats and preservationists have expressed outrage at the administration’s efforts to remodel the city, often acting without approval and skirting federal law.
The White House has been sued by the National Trust for Historic Preservation over its destruction of the East Wing, while there have been sustained complaints about the use of “no-bid” contracts.
Tim Whitehouse, executive director of the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told The New York Times that the renovations in Washington have “become a secretive project where the friends and business associates of the president are being rewarded with no public scrutiny”.
As the Washington projects unfolded this week, Washington waited for Iran’s response to its latest ceasefire proposal to end the more than two-month-old war and the average price of a gallon of petrol soared past $4.50.
Shortly after the US and Iran exchanged fire on Thursday, threatening to derail a fragile ceasefire, Trump drove his motorcade through the reflecting pool to see how the paint job was going.
Asked during the visit why he was focused on the project given the latest attacks, he said, “Our country is about beauty, cleanliness, safety, great people. Not a filthy capital.”
Last weekend, he posted an AI-generated picture of himself floating shirtless in a bright blue version of the pool alongside his top aides and an unknown woman.
Since the reflecting pool was built in 1922, issues with its filtration system have plagued successive administrations. It holds 25.5 million litres of water but has no natural flow. In summer, it turns green with algae.
The Obama administration spent $US35 million trying to fix the issue, while the Biden administration decided to drain and refill it each year.
The Telegraph, London
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