Trump Won't Say if Pirro's Job Is Safe After Oval Office Clash

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he had not yet decided whether Jeanine Pirro will keep her job as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, his strongest public comments yet on her future.

The remarks followed a Monday afternoon meeting in the Oval Office that sources familiar with it described as "contentious." Pirro arrived at the White House with a banker's box full of evidence, prepared to defend her decision to drop charges over damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, according to those sources.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose department oversees national parks, including the Reflecting Pool, was also invited. During the meeting, Pirro lashed out at Burgum directly and blamed him for misleading the president about the evidence in the case, sources said. She accused him of a series of mistakes that she believed he was covering up. The New York Times was first to report details of the meeting.

Earlier Monday, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Pirro "choked" and "folded like an umbrella" by dropping charges against former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn, who had been accused of damaging the pool.

Pirro dismissed the felony indictment against Hearn last Friday, writing in a 20-page filing that the damage was caused by "flawed installation by the contractor" rather than vandalism, as she and the president had long claimed. She also dropped misdemeanor cases against three other people tied to destruction of property at the pool.

Trump has maintained that vandals damaged the pool. Privately, National Park Service engineers blamed the outside private contractor that performed the installation after winning a no-bid contract from the Interior Department — evidence Pirro said emerged after prosecutors brought charges, according to court documents. In those filings, she cited internal Park Service communication from June 11 raising concerns about the peeling pool liner more than a week before Hearn was arrested.

After the charges were dropped, Burgum posted on social media that the "evidence is clear" that vandals damaged the pool.

Trump did not tell Pirro he intended to fire her, and she did not offer to resign, sources said, though the president made clear he had not decided her fate. Sources said Pirro gave some in the White House advance notice that she intended to drop the charges, but it is unclear whether Trump knew; a White House official said he was not aware the court papers were coming.

Late Tuesday, Trump said Pirro is "totally wrong" about the pool and that he was "not happy" with his hand-picked U.S. attorney.