Donald Trump ‘enlisted golf club boss’ for bungled | Golf News

The man behind the botched restoration of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was the supervisor of President Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, a New York Times investigation has found. The NYT reported that David Schutzenhofer, who has overseen the Trump Organization’s Bedminster property since 2006, was handpicked by Trump to spearhead the trouble to restore the national landmark, which had been plagued by ongoing leaks and algae growth for years.

Schutzenhofer lacks any formal credentials in structure or engineering and continues to work as a non-public Trump worker, yet the New York Times found he “played an off-the-books role in government decisions” regarding the project. According to the investigation, Schutzenhofer visited the World of Concrete commerce show in Las Vegas in January while looking for potential options, where exhibitors pointed him toward Rodney Jarboe, president of Missouri-based Creative Polymers.

Schutzenhofer ultimately selected a polyurea liner coating, but tariffs made sourcing the fabric troublesome, prompting Jarboe to collaborate with California-based Rhino Linings, which then enlisted Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings to help with making use of the product — even though that company had never beforehand received a authorities contract.

Charles Birnbaum, president of the nonprofit Cultural Landscape Foundation, harshly criticized the association.

“It’s like asking the museum guard to restore a painting in the Met,” he told the NYT. The renovation shortly fell aside after the Trump administration announced its completion in early June. The blue liner began peeling virtually immediately, and algae reappeared in the pool soon after it was refilled.

The pool was then drained once more for repairs. Neither Schutzenhofer nor Rhino Linings addressed the New York Times’ inquiries about their involvement in the project, while Atlantic Industrial Coatings said only that a “very small part” of the liner needed repairs.

Trump initially claimed the injury resulted from vandalism, an assertion he publicly repeated for weeks despite missing any supporting evidence.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s workplace ultimately admitted in a court submitting that “the damage was the result of a botched installation.”

A decide lately dismissed felony prices against Olympic canoeist David Hearn, who had been accused of vandalizing the pool. Pirro has since dropped instances against a number of other people dealing with related allegations.

Trump subsequently tempered his place, posting on social media that the pool’s points had been partly the outcome of “some contractor error done by rushing the job for a July 4th opening,” while persevering with to assert there was no proof against his vandalism claims and still singling out Hearn despite the dropped prices.