The Government Knew. It Paid Up Anyway.

Federal contracting specialists at the National Park Service explicitly identified the profit margin on the Reflecting Pool deal as inflated and excessive — and the government approved it anyway.

According to federal documents obtained by The New York Times, a Park Service contracting specialist prepared a written analysis finding that typical profit margins on federal construction contracts like this one run 6% to 12%. Atlantic Industrial Coatings — the Virginia-based firm handed a no-bid, $13.1 million contract — submitted a bid charging 20%.

That gap adds at least $850,000 to the taxpayer tab compared to what a standard contract would have cost.

The contracting officer acknowledged the inflation in writing. Then approved it. The justification? The company deserved a premium for taking on a difficult job under a tight deadline.

The Gap-Sealing Problem Got Worse

Previous coverage reported that Atlantic Industrial Coatings was struggling to seal the concrete slab joints at the pool's floor — the very leaks the entire contract was built around fixing.

Federal documents obtained by the Times show the contractor's seal attempts failed twice in trials earlier this month. Two separate tries. Both failures. The contractor and the Park Service are now, per the documents, actively brainstorming alternative approaches.

They paid a 20% profit margin — above the government's own standard — to a firm that cannot yet perform the core function of the job.

Overhead Was Flagged Too

The profit margin wasn't the only problem the Park Service analysis identified. The documents show Atlantic Industrial Coatings also submitted overhead costs of 20%, compared to the typical range of 10% to 15% on comparable federal contracts.

Both figures were flagged as excessive. Both were approved.

The Department of the Interior defended the deal to The Independent, arguing Atlantic Industrial Coatings was "the only company that had the expertise, staff, and materials necessary to complete the project in time" for America's 250th anniversary celebrations. Interior also stated the contract was handled by career civil servants.

The administration is simultaneously taking credit for getting the pool fixed and distancing itself from the contracting decisions that got us here.

Trump Made False Claims at a Cabinet Meeting

At a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Trump defended the project by claiming Democratic predecessors had spent "hundreds of millions of dollars" trying to fix the pool — "over $100 million," he said specifically.

According to The Independent, that is false. The Obama administration spent approximately $35 million on the pool. The Biden administration spent nothing on it.

Trump stated a figure roughly three times the actual amount. Nobody in the room corrected him.

The Backstory Mainstream Media Is Soft-Pedaling

The price tag on this project went from $1.8 million — Trump's initial public claim — to $13.1 million in the span of weeks. That's a 628% increase.

Trump previously said publicly that he personally selected the contractor. Then, according to MSNBC citing earlier Times reporting, he reversed course and said he "did not know" the company and had "never used" them.

The Times previously reported that the general manager of one of Trump's golf clubs helped plan the project. He has no known engineering or architecture credentials.

The work also reportedly began before a final price was agreed upon — a procurement method typically reserved for genuine emergencies, per The Independent.

Most mainstream coverage frames this as a Trump optics story about vanity projects. The actual issue is a government contracting scandal. The Park Service's own people flagged the numbers as wrong. The deal went through anyway. The contractor is failing at its primary task. And $67 million in national park visitor fees are bankrolling D.C. renovation projects that were supposed to cost a fraction of this amount.

The Numbers

Park entrance fees from across the country — at Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and elsewhere — funded a pool paint job in Washington D.C. that costs 7 times what the president claimed it would, carries profit margins the government's own analysts called excessive, and still leaks.

No competitive bidding. No fixed price before work started. No accountability for the contractor's failures.

The administration sought credit for fixing a national landmark. What has been delivered so far is a textbook case of government waste — the kind conservatives have rightly criticized Democrats for across multiple administrations.