President Donald Trump has reacted furiously to the troubles plaguing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, claiming they were caused by vandals and threatening ten-year prison sentences. Even if that were true, his own prosecutors have handed out far more lenient sentences for arguably more serious damage.

Trump’s decision to drain the pool and paint the bottom “American Flag Blue” has been criticized for its cost, plus the no-bid $14 million contract that was given to an ally. Since the pool was refilled, bright green algae have spread throughout the water and the paint has been peeling away. Reporters have seen tourists tearing off pieces of the paint to bring home as souvenirs.

The government has sent out work crews to try to combat the algae through various means, including “hydro-vacuums” and pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water. That appears to have been an inadequate fix, initially killing off some of the algae along the outer edges of the Reflecting Pool and possibly even causing or exacerbating the peeling paint. Tests conducted by two scientists on behalf of a reporter from The Atlantic found that a new “more aggressive” type of algae was spreading throughout the water.

On Saturday, former Olympian David Hearn was arrested and hit with a misdemeanor charge for destruction of government property when he stopped at the Reflecting Pool to check it out.

“I reached in there, and I was able to grab the end of that flapping piece, the already peeling piece,” Hearn told The Washington Post. “It was still attached to the bottom. I didn’t remove anything.”

“I didn’t vandalize anything,” he insisted. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”

Trump has written multiple Truth Social posts accusing unnamed vandals of damaging the Reflecting Pool, blaming “SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE” for the peeling paint and other issues. On Monday, the president again vented his frustrations in a Truth Social post, claiming that vandals had put a “300 foot long gash” in the Reflecting Pool’s paint and “chemicals have been illegally placed in the water.”

“Please remember that there is a 10-year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things – Which will be fully enforced!” Trump added.

Except, as Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney pointed out, Trump’s Department of Justice has not enforced such laws in this way — not even close.

“Trump keeps saying there is a 10-year prison sentence for these crimes — but that is not what even his own DOJ has been seeking in similar cases,” wrote Cheney, sharing a link to an article dated August 25, 2025 regarding a criminal case filed against a Black Lives Matter protester named Micah Avery Jr.

Avery was charged with destruction of federal government property for spray-painting “Yall not tired yet?” onto one of the stone outcroppings of the Lincoln Memorial in 2020.

That’s the same charge that’s been filed against Hearn for allegedly peeling some of the already-peeling paint in the Reflecting Pool, and many would most likely view spray-painted graffiti as a more serious level of vandalism. In a sentencing memo, prosecutors had originally argued that Avery’s spray-paint had cost the National Park Service $9,000 to clean up, and cited the prominence and value of the Lincoln Memorial.

“But Avery did not get a decade or even a month in prison,” reported Politico’s Josh Gerstein. “Under a plea deal, he was given a year of probation, 60 hours of community service and a $500 fine.”

That plea deal was engineered by two top Trump appointees, wrote Gerstein: former interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin, and Jeanine Pirro, who was later confirmed by the Senate to that position.

The DOJ prosecutors supervised by Martin negotiated the plea deal that dropped the charge against Avery from a felony to a misdemeanor, which could have still resulted in up to a year in prison, but when it was time for sentencing, Pirro’s office recommended to the judge that Avery be sentenced to no time behind bars, just probation.

Gerstein’s report noted several other convictions for vandalism handled by Trump’s DOJ in the nation’s capital, all with sentences far more lenient than the “10 years” the president has been touting.

Prosecutors recommended a 30-day sentence for a man who climbed a monument outside Union Station and spray-painted it with the message “Hamas is comin.” He was sentenced to 10 days. A climate activist who threw paint on a National Gallery of Art exhibit including a sculpture by Edgar Degas pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 60 days in jail.

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