A towering 12-foot statue of President Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein holding hands mysteriously appeared on the Capitol Mall early Tuesday.
By sunrise Wednesday, it had vanished.
The United States Park Police quietly removed the provocative bronze sculpture around 5:30 a.m., according to footage obtained by the Daily Beast.
The removal violates a permit issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) to “The Secret Handshake,” the group that claimed responsibility for the installation. The statue was authorized to remain on display across from the Capitol on 3rd Street, between Madison and Jefferson Avenues, until Sunday at 8 p.m., documents reviewed by the Daily Beast reveal.
The DOI is also required to notify the artists at least 24 hours before the statue is removed for any reason.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, an Interior spokesperson said the statue was removed “because it was not compliant with the permit issued.” The spokesperson did not elaborate further.
The White House denied to comment on the statue’s removal and referred the Daily Beast to the DOI for comment.
A spokesperson for The Secret Handshake called the statue’s removal “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.”
“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,” the spokesperson 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 statue’s current whereabouts are unknown, according to the group.
Before its removal, the installation featured several plaques highlighting Trump’s relationship with Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019.
“In Honor of Friendship Month we celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his ‘closest friend,’ Jeffrey Epstein,” one plaque reads.
Others feature Trump’s own words from a 2003 birthday card to Epstein. Trump has denied writing the birthday message.
Trump has insisted that he and Epstein were never close friends, repeating several times that he distanced himself from the late financier after he was put on the sex offender list in 2008, shortly after he pleaded guilty to a charge of solicitation of prostitution with a minor.
But his claims haven’t yet buried the mounting public pressure to release the so-called “Epstein files.”
On Tuesday, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson wrote off the statue as superfluous in a statement.
“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,” Jackson began.
“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.”
The Trump administration has previously allowed installations by The Secret Handshake to remain in place.
In June, an eight-foot sculpture titled “Dictator Approved,” showing a Trumpian thumbs-up crushing Lady Liberty’s crown, appeared on the National Mall. A week later, it was replaced with a golden “television” statue depicting Trump dancing shoulder-to-shoulder with Epstein.
“In June, the White House literally praised themselves for allowing free speech to stay up in reference to our ‘Dictator Approved’ statue,” the artist’s spokesperson wrote. “I guess a lot has changed since then.”
