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Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) is blasting U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for threatening to prosecute people accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool to the fullest extent of the law after President Trump granted blanket pardons last year to people convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.
“I don’t know what’s worse to you, vandalizing a pool or assaulting a police officer?” he said. “Now we got somebody, let’s say they took a pen knife to a damn pool liner, you’re going to prosecute them for 10 years?”
“And you’ve let people that admitted to assaulting a police officer go and think I can take that person seriously? Nah uh,” Tillis, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said.
Tillis made his comments after Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told Fox News’s “The Sunday Briefing” that her office would prosecute people who vandalized or attempted to vandalize the reflecting pool “to the fullest extent” of the law.
“Anyone who was in a position of vandalizing or attempting to vandalize the reflecting pool, will face the criminal justice system in D.C.,” she said. “These are cases that will be prosecuted to the fullest extent.”
“Making DC beautiful is a priority and if you damage, vandalize or do anything to impact something like the reflecting pool, you can be prosecuted,” she said.
The Trump administration’s multi-million dollar renovation of the reflecting pool had just been completed when clumps of algae appeared in the water. Shortly after, the “American flag blue” paint was seen peeling from the bottom of the pool and rising to the surface.
President Trump has sought to blame the issues on vandalism and warned on social media that people convicted of vandalizing the reflecting pool could face 10 years in prison.
“Please remember that there is a 10 year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things – Which will be fully enforced!” Trump warned on Truth Social.
Tillis told reporters Monday that he thinks the Justice Department’s aggressive approach to people who have ripped of bits of peeling paint or sealant from the reflecting pool is totally at odds with Trump’s blanket amnesty of people convicted of storming the U.S. Capitol in January 2021, which resulted in windows being smashed, offices being ransacked, doors being scarred and battered and police officers being seriously injured.
Trump pardoned people convicted of Jan. 6 crimes on the first day of his second term, claiming the proclamation would end what he called “a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years” and begin “a process of national reconciliation.”
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