The grainy surveillance video zooms in on what appears to be a young woman kneeling by the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on a busy Friday afternoon. She puts her hand in the water, elbow deep, and pulls something out.
Now, she’s wanted by the U.S. Park Police.
The video, released by the law enforcement agency Wednesday, is the latest show of the Trump administration’s aggressive effort to blame vandalism for the Capitol city spectacle that has become of the president’s renovation of the memorial pool. Trump’s claim earlier this month that a vandal may have cut the pool’s liner has ballooned into accusations of “sick people” attacking the property out of spite.
“We put a great surface on it — a world-class surface,” Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office. “They came in and they cut it and then they grabbed it and they pulled it up… they’re sick people.”
Leading Democrats on Thursday, meanwhile, launched multiple investigations into potential malfeasance by the administration in its $16 million overhaul.
