President Donald Trump handed a nearly $7 million no-bid contract to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to a contractor he said had worked on his private swimming pools — but the company's own website shows no expertise in swimming pools whatsoever, according to a New York Times investigation published Friday.
Trump gave the contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, a Virginia-based firm that had never previously held a federal contract. The company's website shows it specializes in waterproofing highway culverts, pipes, roofs and chemical and water storage tanks — with no mention of swimming pools anywhere.
"I have a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on April 23. "He looked at it. He called me up. He said, ‘Sir, we can do something on it.’”
Trump said he consulted with three companies that had worked on his swimming pools before choosing Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which he said had performed work at his Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia. The Times could not independently confirm that claim. One of the company's owners declined to comment, saying only "I'm not at liberty to discuss that."
The government has already agreed to pay the company $6.9 million, more than triple the $1.8 million Trump publicly promised. Internal Park Service documents suggest the cost could ultimately exceed $12 million.
To award the contract without competitive bidding, the Trump administration invoked an emergency exemption normally reserved for urgent situations — a tactic the administration has used before on DC beautification projects — citing Trump's self-imposed deadline of July 4th celebrations.
