President Trump posted images he said showed vandalism at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and urged U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro to reconsider her decision to drop related cases. The intervention matters because Pirro’s office had concluded that widespread damage to the pool’s new lining resulted from faulty installation work, contradicting Trump’s repeated assertion that vandals were responsible.

Pirro had sought to dismiss charges against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn and several other suspects after evidence from the Interior Department pointed to problems with the contractor’s work. Hearn, 67, had been charged after allegedly removing part of the recently installed blue sealant; the renovation was undertaken ahead of US 250th-anniversary events and had been reported to cost about $14 million.