Despite having no evidence to support claims, White House says vandals hit Reflecting Pool and arrests were made -- with a former U.S. Olympian nabbed

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Donald Trump says vandals damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, though neither he nor anyone from his administration has produced evidence to support such a claim, according to news accounts yesterday. A number of reports included claims from a White House official that arrests and/or citations had been issued regarding alleged offenses in the area surrounding the pool. The nameless official apparently asked to remain anonymous, and we have found zero reports that anyone from the administration has produced documents to confirm arrests -- even though such documents generally are public records.

The only person to be publicly identified as an arrestee is a former U.S. Olympian who denied doing anything to damage the Reflecting Pool. Trump, in his usual understated fashion, said alleged offenders were "sick, deranged people."

ABC News provides details under the headline "Trump says Reflecting Pool repairs will begin 'immediately' after vandalism arrests; algae has been forming in the pool following a roughly $14M renovation. Nicholas Kerr reports:

President Donald Trump said Sunday that work would begin "immediately" to repair the peeling lining at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, as an administration official confirmed that at least five people have been arrested on vandalism charges related to the pool. 

"Work will begin immediately on fixing the seriously vandalized Reflecting Pool," Trump said in a post on Truth Social, claiming to have just inspected it himself.

Trump said that he "could only say to myself, and those gathered around me, WOW, who would do such a thing? SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE," adding, "we will fix it."

An administration official said on Sunday that as of Saturday night, five individuals had been arrested for vandalism, and five others had been issued citations. 

Citations for what -- licking an ice cream cone, drinking a limeade? Trump has declared those to be crimes? It seems anything that does not involve him can be a crime, right? Here is more from ABC News:

The Reflecting Pool has been plagued with algae and peeling paint in the days since the Trump administration completed the renovation, which cost more than $16 million, and was $4 million more than the estimated cost.

Visitors have been flocking to the pool over the weekend and some have taken to social media with photos and videos showing the algae and peeling paint.

On Saturday, Trump claimed in a post on Truth Social that the painted surface of the Reflecting Pool had been sabotaged with chemicals. 

In a follow-up social media post, Trump said the Reflecting Pool would likely need to be partially drained to repair the peeling lining, which he once again claimed, without evidence, was damaged by intentional sabotage.

"We met with contractors today, will probably be forced to release and drain much of the water in order to do the necessary repairs, but will have them done as quickly as possible," Trump said of the pool's condition. 

Will that work be offered on a no-bid contract like the one Trump gifted his longtime crony and Mar-a-Lago neighbor J.J. Cafaro? That question, it seems, has not yet been asked or answered:

Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which completed the $14.5 million job to install the lining, confirmed in a statement on Sunday that the Reflecting Pool would need to be drained to complete repairs and work would be covered under the project warranty. (Update: The question above has been answered. In an online report by Gabe Sanchez, the president of Atlantic Industrial Coatings said his firm also received a no-bid contract. Has anyone at the White House ever heard of the competitive-bid process? It's not a new thingy.) 

Trump went on and on about the work of "vandals," raising this question: Hasn't anyone ever considered installing 24-7 security cameras near the Lincoln Memorial? Doesn't Walmart carry them? (more on that issue in an upcoming post.) For now, here is more from ABC News:

In his post, Trump referenced the giant "86 47" marked in grass on the National Mall and claimed that "corrosive and destructive chemicals" were poured into the pool by vandals, causing the lining to peel.

The president also alleged that someone "took some form of knife or blade, and put a 250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work, competence, and money to build and complete."

It was not clear if he was referring to the lining of the Reflecting Pool, or to damage to another monument.

"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 said. 

The U.S. Park Police did not immediately respond to ABC News to questions about any of the arrests referenced by Trump in his post. 

What about the one guy who was publicly identified as having been arrested? Let's pick up on that story:

Hours before he made his announcement of the arrests, Trump shared a Daily Mail article about an arrest Friday of a man near the Reflecting Pool, who was later identified as three-time U.S. Olympian David Hearn. (Does anyone see irony in a five-time draft-dodger touting the arrest of an American who represented his country on the world's grandest stage for international sports competition?) Hearn was quick to say the National Park Service had no grounds to detain him, and it sounds like he might have a valid claim for false arrest. I hope he can find a fire-eating lawyer to file a case, win a case, and land a mega judgment -- hopefully with some of it coming out of Trump's pocket.)

Hearn told ABC News that police arrested him on Friday after he touched a piece of blue coating that was partially detached from the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Hearn denied damaging the pool, saying, "I did not remove, I did not damage, I did not rip, tear, break, destroy or harm any part of the Reflecting Pool," Hearn said. 

The National Park Service has not replied to a request from ABC News about Hearn's arrest or any others.

Trump regime's cover-up of the Epstein files, plus its alliance with Israel, seems to have alienated young men who now are suspects in plot against White House

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Two California men have been arrested in an alleged plot to attack Sunday night's White House UFC event, according to a jointly published report at The Los Angeles Times and Yahoo! News. Those are the latest arrests in the case, with the total number of suspects in custody now at five -- with the California suspects joining three arrestees from the Midwest (one each from Ohio, Nebraska, and Missouri). 

The LA Times/Yahoo! report focuses on the backgrounds  of the California men now in custody. Reporters Brittny Mejia and Grace Toohey write:

Two men from the Inland Empire have been arrested and charged in what federal officials describe as a plot to kill government officials and others at the UFC cage-fighting show staged at the White House last weekend.

The two Southern Californians are among five co-conspirators arrested across the country in the murder scheme that authorities said appeared to have been motivated by anti-government ideology.

Here's what we know so far about the men and the plot:

Who are they?

Michael Alan Thomas, 32, was arrested in San Bernardino County's Piñon Hills on Saturday, charged with conspiracy to commit murder, according to officials and records from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Bryan Omar Roa, 24, was arrested the same day about 50 miles south in Riverside County's Calimesa, also charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

According to the complaint filed in federal court in California, Roa and Thomas had been in touch virtually, but had met up at least once in the last month to practice marksmanship and tactics.

Investigators learned about the men's activities by tracking them through an iPhone app that Apple touts as a "secure messenger" that offers "privacy redefined: no user IDs." Mejia and Toohey write:

In messages exchanged on an encrypted messaging application called SimpleX, Thomas and Roa communicated in a chatroom titled "Vanguard of the Old Republic," according to the complaint. There, Thomas told Roa he was "up the hill behind LA," clarifying he was was Piñon Hills, to which Roa responded that he was in Yucaipa, which is located right next to Calimesa, where officials said Roa was arrested.

The two men were linked to the plot about a week before the UFC fight was scheduled, after a relative of an alleged co-conspirator alerted authorities. That co-conspirator, Tycen C. Proper, of Danville, Ohio, identified Roa and Thomas as part of the plot, and shared social media usernames, according to the criminal complaint. 

What was the goal of the plot?

Authorities said Thomas admitted to helping plan the attack and encouraging others to take part. In an interview with FBI agents, Thomas allegedly told authorities the aim of this attack and future ones was to create enough chaos to bring about the overthrow of the U.S. government, according to the criminal complaint.

Authorities said he indicated his belief that the U.S. government is run by an elite group of individuals who sacrifice and consume infants. According to the complaint, Thomas also mentioned the disgraced financier Jeffery Epstein, who was accused of sex-trafficking girls and young women, and said Epstein's associates are now protected by President Trump.

Roa later told authorities that he had planned to attend the UFC event only as a protester, but his vehicle malfunctioned and he had to return home. His family members, however, told law enforcement that Roa said one day they would wake up and he would be gone, and that he intended to travel to Washington, where "something big" would happen.

"Roa's family members also believed he intended to commit an act of violence during this trip due to his increased time spent shooting his weapons and a noticeable change in behavior including increased anxiety, irritation, and seclusion," the complaint states.

Both Thomas and Roa were arrested Saturday, the day before the event on the White House lawn.

FBI agents found firearms, a tactical belt, and radios inside Roa's car. Inside Thomas' home, investigators described finding a pistol, a hunting rifle, an AR-style rifle, and several 30-round ammunition magazines. 

What about the plot?

According to court records, co-conspirators allegedly discussed using drones to drop explosives on the north side of the White House to create panic and funnel event attendees toward locations where they would have snipers ready to kill certain high-value targets.

In Ohio, the FBI searched Proper's home and and found a journal in which he wrote about the government seeking to control people and sacrifice children and others to a demonic figure.

Who where the targets?

Authorities said the journal contained a list of about 46 names, which included celebrities and politicians. When authorities searched Proper's iPhone, "investigators observed chats on Signal groups that laid out detailed plans to conduct an attack in Washington, D.C., with several unidentified co-conspirators," according to the complaint.

"In those chats, law enforcement saw detailed imagery of the National Capitol Region and maps of the area with different potential sniper locations highlighted, potential drone launch locations identified, and other detailed tactical planning locations," the complaint states.

Where does the case stand now?

Roa and Thomas are being held in San Bernardino County jail, according to jail records.

The cases against Proper, 19, remain ongoing, as do the cases against the two other alleged co-conspirators: Daniel K. Eskridge, 32, of Kidder, Mo., and Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, 31, of Omaha, Neb.

What was driving the five known conspirators? That is a hard question to answer because they come from different parts of the country and seem to hold a mixed bag of beliefs. Proper's mother said he had engaged with a Christian extremist group and expressed sympathetic views of Adolph Hitler. On the other hand, Proper had identified President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and more than a half dozen Republican members of Congress as targets of the plot.

Occupy Democrats views the alleged conspiracy as blowback that the Trump regime brought on itself. From a post this week at the group's Facebook page:

BREAKING: MAGA TERROR! The men arrested by the FBI for plotting to attack Trump’s UFC event have been exposed as white pro-Hitler right-wing extremists who were targeting the Trump team for covering up the Epstein files!

Reap what you sow…

Trump’s idiot FBI director, Kash Patel, got in hot water yesterday by prematurely bragging about having foiled a plot to commit a terrorist attack Trump’s UFC fight.

He actually did nothing; the mother of one of the perpetrators called the cops on her son after he began stockpiling weapons and getting deeply involved in an “ultra-religious and anti-government” group on the internet. . . .

The charging documents for one of the men, 19-year-old Tycen Proper, says he joined a TikTok group called "Vanguard of the Old Republic."

His mother told the cops that “PROPER recently began interacting with a group online that was comprised of individuals who represented themselves as ex-military and that may share some Christian-based ideology.

“She stated that she did not know the name of the group, but that they expressed ultra-religious and anti-government sentiments, specifically citing grievances about government corruption, the handling of the Epstein files, data centers taking up all the water in communities, and other government actions.”

Proper himself had been posting pro-Hitler and anti-Semitic comments on social media.

The documents state that Michael Alan Thomas “believes the U.S. government is run by an elite group of individuals who sacrifice and consume infants who also were deeply involved with Jeffrey Epstein and are now protected by President Donald Trump. THOMAS places some of the responsibility of this corruption of government with Jewish people and blames them and Israel for the current war with Iran.”

The group was plotting to attack the UFC fight with drones, driving people towards sniper teams to be shot. Sen. Marsha Blackburn was one of their targets for her slavish devotion to AIPAC and Israel.

As its name implies, Occupy Democrats is a partisan organization, but the facts it cites have been reported at several respected news outlets, including The Los Angeles Times. That indicates -- to me at least -- that the group reached reasonable conclusions, based on facts as they currently are known. From their post:

This is a fascinating glimpse into the blowback that Trump and the right-wing propaganda machine has unleashed against themselves for spending years prompting outrageous conspiracy theories about satanic pedophile cabals…and then going above and beyond to keep the actual Epstein files hidden.

Once again, it is made clear that Trump and the right-wing are the sources of and perpetrators of political violence in America.

How ironic that they end up being its targets now.

Investigation of alleged White House terror plot adds to evidence that Kash Patel is an unqualified, impetuous FBI director who can't play well with others

Of all the loyalist butt sniffers Donald Trump has appointed to government positions, no one sniffs butts quite the way FBI Director Kash Patel does it. In the case of an alleged terror plot against Trump's UFC fight card on the South Lawn of the White House, Patel was in such a rush to claim glory for his inglorious agency that he jeopardized the investigation and got another agency highly pissed at him. We are talking about the United States Secret Service (USSS), and that should matter to Trump because one of the chief duties of the Secret Service is to protect the president and his closest subordinates. That is ironic in this case because a prominent feature of the terror plot was a plan to target Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Republican members of Congress. 

How did all of this play out? MS NOW provides details under the headline "Kash Patel 'jumped the gun' with announcement of UFC plot arrests, sources say; Secret Service officials are angered by the FBI director's early morning social media post that was shared before some suspects were arrested." How significant is this story? The MS NOW byline -- "by Carol Leonnig, Ken Dilanian, Marc Santia and Lisa Rubin -- provides a hint that it is big. The MS NOW reporters write:

Secret Service officials are angered that FBI Director Kash Patel prematurely announced on Tuesday the details of a largely sealed and ongoing criminal investigation into an alleged plot to attack Sunday’s White House UFC event with drones, according to three people familiar with the incident.

Secret Service and FBI agents had been partnered on the investigation into a group of individuals discussing plans for a drone attack at the White House in the last week, and had discussed unsealing the case and making a joint announcement Tuesday afternoon, according to sources.

The problem with Patel’s social media announcement, the sources say, was that the case had been sealed in court and roughly 10 suspects had not yet been arrested and placed in custody at the time Patel shared his post. Sources said Secret Service and FBI officials were surprised by Patel “jumping the gun.”

“We all woke up this morning to see this on Twitter,” said one administration official, who, like others, asked to speak confidentially to discuss sensitive matters.

This is an instance of Kash Patel not playing well with his own teammates. For an agency that handles all manner of sensitive cases, that is not a desirable quality for its director to possess. The MS NOW team reports the case involved coordination between the USSS and the FBI right from the start -- except that Kash Patel could not be counted on to handle his role like a professional:

The threat to the UFC event became known to the Secret Service and FBI in the last week when the mother of one of the suspects contacted local police in the Cincinnati area, according to two people briefed on the probe, and reported that her relative was talking about engaging in a vague plot in Washington.

An advanced threat interdiction team at the Secret Service, with the help of the FBI, began seeking a subpoena for an encrypted Signal chat thread and was able to identify the plot being planned and some of the people discussing using drones and possible snipers to attack the UFC fight event at the White House’s South Lawn.

Authorities then arrested one suspect, 19-year-old Tycen Proper of Danville, Ohio, on June 13 and moved immediately to seal the case so the FBI and Secret Service could continue investigating, identifying and arresting additional suspects. 

Tuesday afternoon, the Justice Department announced the arrests of five men, including Proper, for an “alleged plot to carry out an attack to kill government officials and others” attending the Sunday event, according to a DOJ press release. 

This obviously was a "life and death" matter -- with the use of drones and snipers apparently part of a plan to sow chaos at the event. At stake was the safety of government officials, celebrities in attendance, fight participants, and regular folks who simply wanted to get close to the action. It would have been nice if the FBI director had understood the nature of the investigation. But he was too busy grandstanding to take that into consideration. From the MS NOW report:

Before the UFC event, the Secret Service had dramatically increased its security plans as a precaution and issued an alert to its law enforcement partners to be on the lookout for people with drones in downtown Washington and other identifying information.

Matt Quinn, the Secret Service’s deputy director, appeared to allude to Patel’s premature announcement in a Tuesday news conference but did not use his name and said the Secret Service made a conscious decision not to reveal the existence of the probe prematurely.

“I’ll tell you a phrase I learned early in my career in the New York field office and that’s ‘Don’t choke on your own smoke,’” he said. “I’ll tell you the Secret Service led that investigation from the beginning. I’ll tell you that case is ongoing. In order to maintain the integrity of the investigation and the security plan, we chose not to leak it.”

He said he was choosing not to discuss extensive details of the case because at least some charges remained sealed and ongoing.

--------------------------------------------

Like his boss, Patel appears to have the emotional maturity of a 3-year-old (with apologies to 3-year-olds). Patel's inability to play well with others has become a pattern. From the NS NOW report:

Patel’s public announcement of the probe fits a trend in which the FBI Director has often rushed to make announcements that credit the FBI with stopping a possible attack or catching a criminal suspect in a high-profile case.  

On Sept. 10, 2025, the day conservative Trump ally Charlie Kirk was shot and killed, Patel rushed to post on X at 6:21 p.m that the FBI had great news: “The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody.”

“I stated in that message that we had a subject and that we were going to interview him, and we did, and he was released,” Patel said. “Could I have worded it a little better in the heat of the moment? Sure. But do I regret putting it out? Absolutely not.” 

Patel's impetuous nature was on display again not long after the Kirk shooting:

That same month, the director faced scrutiny and questions about his leadership when he posted photographic evidence from a shooting at a Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

And in December 2025, Patel prematurely posted news that authorities had a “person of interest” for a shooting at Brown University in custody. He soon had to correct that claim when the individual was released and found to have no ties to the shooting. 

This is the kind of behavior you get when a president persists in nominating unqualified individuals for important positions -- and a Republican-controlled U.S. Senate refuses to take seriously its constitutional duty under the Appointments Clause to vet and confirm nominees. How in the world did Kash Patel get confirmed by the U.S. Senate? That might be one of many questions that grow out of the White House terror-plot case.