President Trump says the peeling blue coating and algae blooms that mar his $16.4 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are the fault of vandals working with “knives” in the “dark of night.”

But government documents obtained by The New York Times show that while National Park Service workers found two cuts in sections of foam between the pool’s expansion joints, those were not directly related to the “American flag blue” coating that is now peeling, or to the algae that has turned the pool a bright shade of green.

Even as the documents show workers were attempting to address deteriorating conditions, Trump administration officials were insisting publicly that the pool was pristine.

The pool had been drained, resealed and then refilled by June 5. Four days later, Park Service workers discovered holes, cracks and peeling caulking in parts of the pool, along with cuts in sections of the foam, according to the documents.

The cause of the cuts was unclear. While a June 9 report by the U.S. Park Police described the cuts as “razor blade slashes” made along a 20-foot-long stretch of the foam, the administration has yet to present evidence supporting that assertion. The documents reviewed by The Times described them as two 171-foot blade cuts but did not address how they were made.

By June 16, workers had noticed that chunks of blue sealant that covered the pool’s bottom were peeling and floating to the surface, the documents show. That sealant was separate from the foam in the pool’s expansion joints, which allow its concrete slabs to expand and contract.