President Trump has chosen Dennis Kirk, a co-author of the right-wing road map known as Project 2025, as inspector general for the Interior Department, a role that would oversee any review of the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
The White House announced the nomination of Mr. Kirk, a former adviser to Tulsi Gabbard when she served as director of national intelligence, and a staff member at the conservative Heritage Foundation, last week. His nomination is subject to Senate approval.
The Trump administration’s efforts to rush through repairs to the pool, a national landmark, ended in disaster earlier this year. A hastily installed blue lining began to peel up and new water-purification systems failed to prevent a huge bloom of algae that turned the pool green.
Officials have said the work will be redone to fix the problems. Mr. Trump has blamed vandals, without citing evidence. The Justice Department cited a botched installation and moved to dismiss vandalism charges against several defendants.
Under Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the department approved no-bid contracts for vendors, citing tight deadlines, in an effort to bypass scrutiny of the renovations, according to a New York Times investigation.
Last week, Democrats called on the office of the department’s inspector general to investigate the process. The office does not discuss its investigations, and it is not known whether there is one underway.
Democrats criticized Mr. Kirk’s nomination to a watchdog position that would oversee any review. Representative Jared Huffman of California said in a statement last week that it was an attempt by the White House to put his supporters in offices intended to investigate the administration.
Mark Greenblatt, who held the nonpartisan inspector general position before being ousted as part of a mass firing last year, said the nomination raised serious concerns and called on the Senate to reject the nomination. “Inspectors general must be able to investigate the administration that appointed them without fear or favor,” he said in a statement.
The White House defended the nomination in a statement on Tuesday. “Dennis Kirk has a long career within government demonstrating a loyalty to the rule of law,” it said. “We look forward to Mr. Kirk being confirmed as the next inspector general at Interior.”
Mr. Kirk recently worked as an adviser to Ms. Gabbard, who resigned in May as national intelligence director. As an associate director at the Heritage Foundation, he also co-wrote part of Project 2025, a large-scale policy playbook that detailed extreme executive branch overhauls.
