WASHINGTON — A statue depicting President Donald Trump and the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein reappeared Thursday on the National Mall amid the government shutdown.
The bronze-colored figures — shown holding hands and each with one leg lifted in the air — were first installed last week but removed by U.S. Park Police on Sept. 24. The statue, titled “Best Friends Forever,” includes a plaque that reads: “In honor of friendship month, we celebrate the long-standing bond between President Donald J. Trump and his closest friend Jeffrey Epstein.”
The National Park Service did not respond to a request for comment because of the government shutdown that started Wednesday. The White House and the Interior Department, which oversees the park service, also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson, in a statement last week, dismissed the installation.
“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.”
In a statement to The Independent last week, a group called “The Secret Handshake” claimed responsibility for the statue.
The Trump administration has come under criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, as well as many MAGA supporters, over its handling of documents related to Epstein. While Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel had pledged to make more information about Epstein public, they later reversed course. In July, the Justice Department and the FBI said in a joint, unsigned memo that all the evidence had been reviewed, no other charges were anticipated, and no further information would be released.
Trump was known to have had a friendly relationship with Epstein, telling New York magazine in 2002: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy.”
The two had a falling-out sometime before Epstein faced public accusations of preying on underage girls. In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting one underage girl, though he had been under investigation in several other cases. In 2019, he was hit with federal sex trafficking charges and later died by suicide in jail awaiting trial, fueling widespread conspiracy theories.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Justice Department over the summer for its records on Epstein. Democrats on the committee have said much of what has since been turned over was already publicly available.
