US Park Police remove Trump-Epstein statue from National Mall
It only lasted a day. The U.S. Park Police removed a statue of President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein from the National Mall at approximately 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday. The protest artwork had been placed on the east side of the mall near the U.S. Capitol building Tuesday, and there was a permit for it to remain until Sunday.
The Reddit user are-you-a-vegetable posted a video of a uniformed officer supervising a team of maintenance workers loading it onto a flatbed truck before sunrise. After the sun rose, the only thing left was an outline in the sand revealing where it had been.
Dozens of people came down to see the statue on Wednesday morning and were disappointed to learn it was already gone.
“As somebody that had served this country for 17 years to ensure the freedom of speech for our fellow countrymen, it is beyond reprehensible to me,” Navy Veteran Christopher Hooper told Straight Arrow News.
“It comes down to freedom of speech and that includes art,” Hooper continued. “So the fact that it’s gone — we’re no longer in the threat of an authoritarian government, we are in an authoritarian government.”
Everyone who Straight Arrow News spoke with on the National Mall Wednesday opposes President Trump, which is typical in heavily Democratic D.C., especially when there’s a protest.
“More and more of our rights are being eliminated or usurped by this administration,” Lynn Koiner told SAN. “You can’t protest. If you say anything, like Jimmy Kimmel, you’re taken off.”
The statue had a plaque that stated, “In honor of friendship month. We celebrate the long-standing bond between President Donald J. Trump and his closest friend Jeffrey Epstein.”
Beneath the inscription was a carving of two hands held together to form a heart and a reference to the Trump message to Epstein in the “birthday book“ — “Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything.”
The plaque is a reference to Jeffrey Epstein stating he was Trump’s “closest friend”.
“The Epstein case reminds me of the Watergate missing 18 minutes of tape,” Dan Meijer told SAN. “The truth will bubble up slowly but eventually, and so the more he panics about it, the more you realize there’s something there.”
While Trump has called the Epstein files a Democratic hoax and has so far been able to keep a bulk of them sealed, it may get harder to do that in the coming weeks. Adelita Grijalva won a special election in Arizona Tuesday night to fill a vacant seat in the House of Representatives. Once she’s sworn in, she can be the final signature needed on a discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the files.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has opposed the vote and wants the investigation of the Oversight Committee to continue. But Democrats and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., have been working to force a vote, and they may be a couple of days away from succeeding.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
