The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is set to be drained again after Donald Trump said on Monday – without providing proof – that five people were arrested for vandalism and five more are under investigation in connection to the algae blooms and peeling paint that appeared weeks after his ill-fated $14m renovation attempt.

“It’s not a lot of damage, but we’ll probably have to let the water out and refix it. They went in there with a knife,” Trump told reporters, describing what he first said was a 290- to 300ft slit in the paint but then later amended to a 350ft slit. He also said someone had put fertilizer into the water, which caused the algae to grow.

Reporters who visited the pool on Sunday could see no evidence of such damage, the Washington Post reported.

The newspaper also interviewed three-time Olympic cyclist David Hearn, who said he had been arrested by US park police on a misdemeanor charge after stopping by the refurbished pool and, out of curiosity, touching one of the pieces of peeling paint liner.

Trump has sought to turn the monument “American flag blue” in time for the for the country’s 250th birthday, which included painting the bottom of the pool a dark shade of navy officially called “Old Glory Blue”.

He awarded a no-bid contract to a company he said had previously done work on swimming pools at one of his golf clubs, and within days of the completion of the work, the water started to appear green from algae plaguing the standing water and the coating of paint applied during the renovation also started to detach.

On Monday, Trump was adamant it was not the pool company to blame for the algae blooms and peeling paint, but “vandals”. When pushed to provide evidence of his claims, he told reporters to call the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service. Neither agency responded immediately to a request for comment, nor did the US park police.

When asked how alleged vandals were able to get so close to one of Washington DC’s most historically symbolic attractions, where there is a heavy police presence, Trump responded that “we didn’t have a lot” of police then.

“Who would think that somebody would go into a pool and take a knife and start cutting it?” he asked.

It’s unclear when the pool will be drained, but a spokesperson with the DC Water Authority said the agency has issued the national parks service a temporary permit to discharge water into a sewer that flows into a local treatment facility. The permit was issued 16 June and expires 2 July, the spokesperson said.

Trump had earlier posted on social media that “there is a 10-year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things – Which will be fully enforced!”

Destruction of federal property ⁠can carry a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.

Former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan delivers the keynote address at the IMF Statistical Forum/Statistics for Policy Making in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 18, 2014. Greenspan died on Monday at age 100.

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Former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan delivers the keynote address at the IMF Statistical Forum/Statistics for Policy Making in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 18, 2014. Greenspan died on Monday at age 100.

Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images

Sign up for the Planet Money newsletter. The world is confusing. Economics can help.

Alan Greenspan, who steered the Federal Reserve for nearly two decades, through some of the longest economic booms in U.S. history, has died. Greenspan died Monday at his home in Washington. He was 100.

Greenspan was the rare celebrity among central bankers, lionized for his economic stewardship in the 1990s. At a time when it seemed every barbershop had a television tuned to the stock market channel, ordinary Americans hung on the Fed chairman’s every word.

His reputation was tarnished, however, by the global financial crisis which struck a decade later.

Greenspan liked to write speeches in the bathtub, but it was his listeners who were sometimes left feeling underwater by the unfamiliar dialect known as “Fedspeak.”

Greenspan later acknowledged that he would deliberately garble his syntax to avoid saying anything that might move financial markets.

A notorious exception came in 1996, when Greenspan seemed to suggest that stock prices might be getting ahead of themselves.

“How do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset prices,” he asked during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute.

The warning that exuberant investors might not be quite rational sent temporary shivers through global stock markets. But Greenspan’s own stock continued to climb.

Fed Chair Alan Greenspan testifies before the Joint Economic Committee in Congress in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 1999.

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Fed Chair Alan Greenspan testifies before the Joint Economic Committee in Congress in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 1999.

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Greenspan dabbled in jazz

He was married to NBC news anchor Andrea Mitchell, who anounced his death in a statement, and the two made a somewhat unlikely power couple. Comedian Jay Leno once joked during a White House Correspondents Association dinner that Mitchell, not then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, was married to “the most powerful man in the world.”

Greenspan was a talented jazz musician who studied clarinet and saxophone at Juilliard. But it was economics that made him a rock star and a symbol of the widely-shared prosperity at the end of the 20th century.

Felony warning issued as arrests reported at Reflecting Pool

Federal officials are warning visitors that taking paint chips, debris or other materials from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool could lead to felony charges as crews continue cleaning up a major algae bloom that has turned the landmark’s water bright green.

WASHINGTON – Federal officials are warning visitors that taking paint chips, debris or other materials from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool could lead to felony charges as crews continue cleaning up a major algae bloom that has turned the landmark’s water bright green.

The warning comes after authorities reported multiple arrests Saturday involving people accused of removing material from the Reflecting Pool.

Algae, paint problems plague Reflecting Pool

What we know:

While officials have not released the exact number of arrests or identified those taken into custody, law enforcement agencies said anyone caught taking paint chips or debris from the site could face serious criminal penalties.

Visitors have reported seeing blue paint chips floating in the water as cleanup crews use mobile draining machines to remove algae and restore the pool. The unusual appearance of the Reflecting Pool has attracted large crowds to the National Mall in recent days, according to previous FOX 5 D.C. reporting. 

President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that work on the Reflecting Pool would begin immediately and claimed several arrests had been made in connection with what he described as deliberate sabotage of the site.

Authorities have not publicly detailed the specific charges filed in the reported arrests. However, federal officials warned that removing government property from the Reflecting Pool could result in felony charges, and prosecutors could pursue more serious offenses if evidence shows anyone intentionally contaminated the water or caused additional damage.

READ MORE: Reflecting Pool looks ‘like vomit,’ visitors say; crews continue cleaning job

“If there are more serious products that are put into the Reflecting Pool to create more algae or a bigger problem, then we’ll consider more serious charges,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro told Fox News. “But make no mistake, making D.C. beautiful is a priority and if you damage, vandalize or do anything to impact something like the Reflecting Pool, you can be prosecuted.”

What’s next:

The Reflecting Pool remains under active cleanup as officials investigate the cause of the algae bloom, according to the president. 

According to federal contract data, a more extensive renovation, including potentially draining the pool again, could cost more than $14 million.