A large statue depicting President Donald Trump and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein holding hands has been removed from the National Mall in Washington D.C. after only one day on display.
The 12-foot statue appeared on Tuesday, and was placed on the National Mall legally. The group behind the artwork requested and were granted a permit from the National Parks Service, which manages many of the federal spaces in the capital.
The statue included three plaques, two of which contain excerpts from the bawdy birthday letter Trump allegedly wrote Epstein for his 50th birthday.
A copy of the letter, featuring a hand-drawn figure of a naked woman along with the president’s reported signature, was made public this month by the House Oversight Committee. Trump has denied any involvement with the letter, even suing the Wall Street Journal, which first published a report about it for $10 billion, claiming that “no authentic letter or drawing exists.”
Despite having proper permits — which granted it the space until 8pm on Sunday, September 28 — the statue was removed from its spot on the National Mall on Wednesday morning.
National Park Police told WUSA9 that it was in violation of its permit, but did not explain the nature of the violation.
According to the outlet, the permit includes a clause noting that the statue could be removed at any time, so long as the permit holders were notified of the reason for its removal 24 hours in advance.
The Secret Handshake, the tiny anonymous group who claim to be behind the statue, told The Independent their creation was destroyed at 5.30 a.m. Wednesday morning.
“We found out at the end of the day that some people within the parks department aka most likely the Trump administration were trying to find ways to say we were not in compliance,” they said.
“We were then told everything is okay and that if the administration decided to remove it we would have 24 hours notice to take it down ourselves. Instead, they showed up in the middle of the night without notice and physically toppled the statue, broke it, and took it away.”
The group added: “This is a literal example of the Trump administration toppling free speech when it has been legally permitted and approved because they are scared about whatever Trump is hiding in the Epstein files. I personally think the timing of this less than 24 hours after Jimmy Kimmel is interesting."
The statue was erected at a time when Trump is trying to distance himself from Epstein. He has been plagued with questions about his association with Epstein for years, but those questions came to a head earlier this year after Attorney General Pam Bondi said there was no "client list" among the Department of Justice's Epstein investigation documents, having previously suggest such a list was "sitting on my desk."
As calls for the Epstein files to be fully released to the public intensified, Trump began lashing out at his own base.
“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bull****,’ hook, line, and sinker,” he wrote on Truth Social.
The White House denounced the statue in a statement to The Independent.
“Liberals are free to waste their money however they see fit – but it’s not news that Epstein knew Donald Trump, because Donald Trump kicked Epstein out of his club for being a creep," the spokesperson said. "Democrats, the media, and the organization that’s wasting their money on this statue knew about Epstein and his victims for years and did nothing to help them while President Trump was calling for transparency, and is now delivering on it with thousands of pages of documents.”
Experts and lawmakers who reviewed the "thousands of pages" that were released earlier this year found that 97 percent of the files made public had already been in the public record prior to the White House disclosure.
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