WASHINGTON (AP) — The World War II Memorial on the National Mall has been vandalized, with bubbles filling a fountain and “Clean hands dirty $” written in red paint.
The vandalism comes weeks after President Donald Trump said the nearby Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was deliberately damaged. He called the people responsible “animals.”
“Our beautiful World War II Memorial was just hit by Spray Painting Vandals,” he said on Friday on his Truth Social site. “THERE CAN BE NO GREATER INSULT TO THOSE AMERICAN HEROES WHO DIED IN WORLD WAR II.”
The Interior Department said that the U.S. Park Police were on the scene following the Thursday vandalism and an investigation was ongoing. “The public should know we will find the person responsible for this disgusting act,” the department said.
Soap at the pool of the World War II Memorial, after it was reportedly vandalized with soap and graffiti, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Kylie Cooper/Reuters
The Friends of the National World War II Memorial, a nonprofit organization that helps maintain the site, said: “There are many places in our country for expression, debate, and disagreement. A national memorial honoring those who served and those who never returned home should never be used as a canvas for vandalism.”
The Veterans of Foreign Wars called the vandalism “an act of profound disrespect, a slap in the face to the veterans who served and sacrificed and to the families who carried that burden at home.”
The World War II Memorial is just east of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the Mall. After a botched repair job earlier this year left the pool with peeling blue sealant and green algae, Trump blamed the issues on vandalism without providing evidence.
“First the Reflecting Pool, now this,” Trump said in his Truth Social post. “We are on their trail! Where do these animals come from???”
A former Olympian was charged in late July with deliberately damaging the Reflecting Pool, but the Justice Department later moved to dismiss that case, saying evidence prosecutors had received refuted the idea that vandals were to blame.
Trump sharply criticized U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s assessment that damage to the Reflecting Pool was the result of shoddy construction and not the work of vandals, as he claimed.
READ MORE: Reflecting Pool’s botched repairs threaten to tarnish the National Park Service’s reputation
The case dismissal was an embarrassing setback for a Justice Department that had previously echoed Trump’s claims and billed the prosecution as accountability for damage at a Washington landmark, a pet project of Trump. Pirro’s decision to drop the case was also a rare moment during Trump’s second term of an aide or political appointee openly defying him.
Pirro blamed the Interior Department for providing “less than fulsome information at the outset of the case.” It was a jarring turn in position from Pirro, who had claimed the government’s case was built on “tremendous evidence” when she announced the indictment.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in a posting on X appeared to push back against Pirro’s criticism, claiming some of the acts of vandalism were captured on video.
