The Trump administration will not seek new bids to repair the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Sunday as he faced new questions about the troubled project and the taxpayer money involved.

Like President Donald Trump, Burgum said he was 100% sure that vandals caused the damage to the century-old Reflecting Pool on the National Mall. Trump has charged that a 350-foot gash was cut into the pool’s liner in the midst of recent renovations, while Burgum described it as multiple cuts adding up to that figure. He also said the pool would have to be at least partially drained in the coming week to finish the repairs.

The repairs will not be opened up to new contractors, he said.

“We’ll use the same company, because they did a fantastic job,” Burgum told CNN’s “State of the Union.” ”Thankfully, the vandalism was small. It was bad. I mean, it could cost tens of thousands of dollars to repair, so then it could fall into a felony … just like damaging any other government property could. But the job that was done to fix the Reflecting Pool was done extremely well.”

Trump this spring pledged to beautify the Reflecting Pool before the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations on July Fourth. Water was drained and the Republican president directed that the bottom be painted a color he called “American flag blue.” But after the site was restored, the water was plagued by an algae bloom for more than a week, and pieces of the new coating have appeared to be peeling off the bottom.

The pool was closed for the Independence Day celebration, but Burgum said that was due to a safety issue related to the fireworks.

The evolving debate over the Reflecting Pool has inflamed the broader fight over Trump’s aggressive push to overhaul Washington landmarks, including the White House, nearly two years into his final term in office.

Authorities have arrested more than a half dozen people related in relation to Reflecting Pool damage, including former Olympian David Hearn, who was indicted last week on a felony of property destruction.

The top federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, said Hearn ripped up recently installed sealant on the pool in “a deliberate act” that caused more than $1,000 in damage. She accused him of “forcefully and violently” pulling up the bottom liner “with both hands” and acting belligerently toward an employee who told him to stop.

Hearn’s lawyers, Democracy Defenders Fund co-founder Norm Eisen and Mary Dohrmann, said the charges were “outrageous and should be alarming to every American.” Eisen and Dohrmann construed the case as representative of “the misuse of government power against an ordinary citizen based on a concocted narrative.”

Burgum was asked and did not answer directly whether there was photographic evidence of vandals cutting the pool’s liner. He was also asked whether Hearn should face a 10-year prison sentence, which is the maximum legal penalty for his charge.

“Just because you were a former something doesn’t exclude you from the law today,” Burgum told CNN. “The courts will decide.”

Meanwhile, questions loom over the no-bid contracts for the project that were awarded to vendors with prior ties to Trump.

Ohio-based Green Water Solutions, also known as Greenwater Services, was given a $1.7 million contract to install a water-purification system in the Reflecting Pool, while Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings was awarded $14.7 million to repaint and waterproof the pool’s concrete floor.

About 10 Democratic senators and House members are investigating the pool project.

“Taxpayers deserve a full explanation of how these failures occurred and who will be held accountable for correcting them,″ said a letter signed last month by six senators.

Burgum also appeared on ABC’s “This Week.”

Thousands of people gathered in the US capital to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday in a day that was marked by extreme weather, delays, and a huge display of fireworks.

The celebration, which included a flyover, a concert, as well as a speech by US President Donald Trump, was delayed by a thunderstorm that forced an evacuation of the National Mall in the early evening.

The night ended with the skies being lit up by the reputed largest fireworks display ever in the US.

The 4 July federal holiday commemorates the 13 US colonies signing the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to end British rule.

BBC correspondent Richard Preston attended the celebrations.

More on this story here.

Berk Kutay Gokmen

Masked individuals, including some displaying Confederate flags, were observed marching through Washington, D.C., on the Fourth of July, the US Independence Day.

“Reclaim America, reclaim America,” the crowd was heard chanting in a video captured near Union Station by radio station WTOP’s Mitchell Miller, who reported that the group advocated for the removal of immigrants.

Footage recorded by Miller shows several participants carrying flags that appear to feature the Patriot Front logo. The Anti-Defamation League identifies Patriot Front as a white supremacist group.

“A group of masked men gathered at Union Station today and called for reclaiming the country and getting rid of immigrants. Some held Confederate flags. They have been marching across Capitol Hill,” Miller wrote on US social media company X.

Other footage posted on social media appeared to depict the group marching near the Eastern Market Metro station.