Olympic athlete arrested for touching Trump’s slime-covered pool

A three-time Olympian who stopped by the Lincoln Memorial on Friday to see the newly refurbished Reflecting Pools found himself in handcuffs.

David Hearn, 67, was checking out the pool, which, as President Donald Trump has boasted, was recently painted ‘American flag blue’.

But while there, Hearn noticed part of the blue liner that detached from the pool’s bottom.

After he reached into the water to see what it felt like, he was cuffed and charged with destruction of government property.

Footage of the incident was quickly spread online by conservative commentators, who claimed Hearn was ‘vandalising’ the Reflecting Pool.

Hearn told the Washington Post: ‘I didn’t vandalise anything. I didn’t destroy, break, or peel anything. By the time I realised what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.’

The former Olympian, who competed in the canoe slalom, said he reached his hand into the pool and felt the end of the paint piece, which was still attached to the pool wall.

Trump and other members of his administration have continued to claim that vandals are messing with his ‘magnificent’ Reflecting Pool.

‘Many additional people have been arrested having to do with the disgraceful Vandalism of our beautiful Reflecting Pool,’ the president said on Truth Social.

‘It hasn’t looked or worked like this since 1922, when it was originally built, but even then, it leaked badly, and didn’t work.

‘Ours worked perfectly, including the mirror like finish, perfectly reflecting the two Great Monuments, which it never had before!

‘What these terrible Vandals have done is a true affront to both Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and should be dealt with accordingly.’

Trump claimed the pool had never looked so ‘beautiful’ – despite the landmark already being filled with algae just weeks after he forked out $20,000,000 to refurbish it.

The government announced it was fixing leaks in the pool’s granite foundation and coating it with blue paint ahead of the 250th anniversary of the US’ independence.

But after the project was completed earlier this month, it quickly came up against some issues – the glaring one being that it’s bright green.

‘The algae is dead and being vacuumed up as we speak,’ the government said, adding, ‘We thank President Trump for fixing the Reflecting Pool for good.’

Photos of the memorial from this week showed the pools were a dark green as ducks swam past.

Part of the renovation was an ‘advanced nanobubbler technology’ which works to produce small gas bubbles to control algae.

It’s unclear if the ‘nanobubbler’ has issues or if the algae have bloomed thanks to the high temperatures in DC.

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