A 12-foot bronze statue depicting President Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein holding hands mysteriously appeared on the Capitol Mall early Tuesday, only to vanish by sunrise the following day.
The United States Park Police removed the sculpture around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to video reviewed. The quiet removal, however, appears to have violated the terms of a permit issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) to “The Secret Handshake,” the artist collective behind the installation. Documents showed the statue was authorized to stay in place across from the Capitol on 3rd Street between Madison and Jefferson Avenues until Sunday at 8 p.m. The permit also required that the group be given at least 24 hours’ notice before any removal.
In a statement, a DOI spokesperson said the removal occurred “because it was not compliant with the permit issued,” but offered no additional details. The White House declined to comment, directing inquiries back to the Interior Department.
A spokesperson for The Secret Handshake criticized the move, calling it “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.”
According to the group, officials initially assured them that everything was in compliance and promised 24 hours’ notice if the statue needed to come down. “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 spokesperson said.
The current location of the statue is unknown. Before its removal, the installation featured plaques that highlighted Trump’s long association with Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in 2019. One plaque read: “In Honor of Friendship Month we celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his ‘closest friend,’ Jeffrey Epstein.” Another included words from a 2003 birthday card to Epstein, which Trump has denied writing.
“We erected it now because there is almost universal bipartisan interest in Donald Trump following through on his promise to release the Epstein files,” the group’s spokesperson added.
Although Trump has insisted that he and Epstein were never close—often repeating that he distanced himself after Epstein was placed on the sex offender registry in 2008—the pressure to release the “Epstein files” continues to grow.
On Tuesday, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed the statue as irrelevant. “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,” she 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,” Jackson continued.
The Secret Handshake has staged provocative installations before, and the Trump administration had previously allowed them to remain. In June, the group placed an eight-foot work called “Dictator Approved” on the National Mall, which showed a Trump-like hand giving a thumbs-up crushing Lady Liberty’s crown. A week later, it was replaced by a golden “television” piece portraying Trump dancing alongside 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 collective said. “I guess a lot has changed since then.”
