TRUTH BE KNOWN: The Justice Department admitted the obvious, that there was no vandalism at the Lincoln memorial reflecting pool and that felony charges against a former Olympic canoeist will be dropped.

  Federal prosecutors said yesterday that the contractors hired by the Trump administration had botched the renovation of the pool, leading to a failure of the new blue bottom coating, and that the Interior Department had falsely blamed the damage on vandals.

  The US attorney in Washington, Jeanine Pirro, said she would seek dismissal of the charge against David Hearn, who was accused of pulling up a piece of the pool’s lining. Hearn had always said he merely felt a piece of lining that had floated up.

  Pirro, a former television judge, had said at the time of Hearn’s indictment that, “National Park Service employees observed Hearn, actually forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands.”

  The reversal of Hearn’s case is in direct conflict with President Trump’s repeated claim that the reflecting pool liner was the target of vandals who had cut it with knives. An Interior Department spokeswoman had said, “President Donald J. Trump is an expert builder who fixed the Reflecting Pool permanently before deranged people vandalized it.” 

  Pirro said yesterday that the pool’s new coating had actually started to peel within two days of the project’s completion yet the Interior Department hid that fact from prosecutors, telling them that “nearly all of the damage” was done by vandals.

  It will be interesting to see whether anyone at the Interior Department is indicted for lying.

THE WAR ROOM: Kuwait said that it was the target overnight of a wave of Iranian drone attacks as President Trump threatens an escalation of his war, preparing to hit Iran “very hard.”

  Kuwait said it had shot down multiple drones.

  Speaking at the presidential retreat Camp David, Trump said, “We’ll be hitting them very hard, and you know at some point they’re going to say, ‘We just can’t take it anymore.’” 

  They haven’t so far despite taking a pounding. The NY Times reports that it looks like the US used a 2,000 pound bomb to take out a single house on Iran’s Qeshm Island, killing a couple and their two-year-old son. There’s no word on who or what may have been the target. 

  A senior Iranian military commander said the US is “increasingly pursuing a path of widespread warmongering.”

  Steven Erlanger writes in The NY Times that: “For the moment, Iran is seemingly resolute under a more radical government, its nuclear and ballistic missile programs are degraded but not destroyed, and the Strait of Hormuz is effectively under its control. The war has left both the United States and Israel in weaker positions — and blaming each other for the mess.”

TAKEN: Investigators in Pima County, Arizona released the text of ransom notes in the kidnapping case of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, mother of “Today Show” host Savannah Guthrie. They hope someone might recognize the wording and handwriting style.

  The first note demanded $4 million to be paid in Bitcoin by February 5th. If that deadline passed, the note said, the ransom would rise to $6 million and would need to be paid by February 9. “If payment is not received by the last deadline on Monday the 9th at 5 p.m., she will be killed,” the note said. “Your mother is aware of this and her life is in your hands.”

  The last note said Nancy Guthrie had died. “We never intended to hurt her, that was not our intention,” it read. “She perished shortly after she was taken. We believe it was heart related. She is buried in nature now.”

INFINITE SCROLL: 

— After failing to block funding for the pre-school children’s program Head Start, the Trump administration appears to be trying to cripple the anti-poverty program by removing its standards …. requirements for math and literacy curricula, class sizes, medical screenings, home visits, and even the requirement that children brush their teeth after meals.

— President Trump is offering a service for $100,000 a month for rich insiders to get early access to Truth Social posts from himself and other high profile users. The service would certainly make it possible for stock traders and prediction market gamblers to cash in and might be in violation of insider trading laws.  

THE SPIN RACK:  Reports say that most of the 50 or 60,000 people who swam and crashed over the border of the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta have left as they were hungry, homeless, and disappointed. As many as 67 people drowned or otherwise died in the rush. — Los Angeles prosecutors charged an LAPD officer with felony eavesdropping for making secret recordings of a colleagues’ racist, sexist and anti-gay comments on the job. LA District  Attorney Nathan Hochman said that while he found the recorded comments deplorable, recording them without the other officer’s knowledge violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act. 

BELOW THE FOLD: Historically Black Tuskegee University imposed a new dress code, requiring that, “Students must “arrive on campus with a business suit and proper shoes for a business meeting,” according to University President Dr. Mark Brown.

  The dress code bans “revealing clothing in class, to the cafeteria or in official settings like Convocation,” along with “bedroom shoes, bonnets, or du-rags to class or the cafeteria.”