statue

Oct. 28 (UPI) — A statue of a Confederate general toppled amid the civil rights protests that swept across the country during the summer of 2020 has been reinstalled in Washington, D.C.’s Judiciary Square.

The 27-foot bronze and marble statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike was reportedly returned to the square on Saturday.

It had been removed after protesters toppled the statue, the only one honoring a Confederate general in the nation’s capital, in June 2020 amid Black Lives Matter protests demanding an end to police brutality and racial injustice after the murder of George Floyd by a White police officer.

In August, the National Park Service announced that it would be restored in alignment “with federal responsibilities under historic preservation law as well as recent executive orders to beautify the nation’s capital and reinstate pre-existing statues.”

While the NPS says the statue honors Pike’s “leadership in Freemasonry,” critics deride its return as the man fought against the United States in the Civil War.

“The morally objectionable move is an affront to the mostly Black and Brown residents of the District of Columbia and offensive to members of the military who serve honorably,” Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., said in a statement.

“Pike represents the worst of the Confederacy and has no claim to be memorialized in the nation’s capital.”

A 12-foot statue depicting President Trump holding hands with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein appeared on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Tuesday morning and was removed by the National Park Service less than 24 hours later.

The saga, which made the rounds on late-night TV this week, did not stop there.

On Thursday, the group responsible for creating the statue — an anonymous collective of “satirical activists” called the Secret Handshake — said the National Park Service denied a second permit to reinstall the controversial statue, which featured a plaque reading, “We celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his ‘closest friend,’ Jeffrey Epstein.”

“The statue was removed because it was not compliant with the permit issued,” Interior Department spokesperson Elizabeth Peace told CNN, citing a height discrepancy.

The statue, spray-painted bronze and titled “Best Friends Forever,” was removed on Wednesday at 5:30 a.m., said Carol Flaisher, a D.C.-based location manager who had been contracted by Secret Handshake to obtain the appropriate permit for the statue.

It’s a job Flaisher says she’s been doing for film and television throughout her 40-year career, and she has never seen a permitted display on the National Mall removed, she says. If there are issues with the permit, the NPS is required to give the applicant 24-hour notice to fix the error before taking action. That notice was not given, Flaisher says.

“We’ve been doing this for so long. I’ve never had one rejected, ever, ever, ever,” said Flaisher. “I’ve never been thrown off of the property. I’ve never heard of such a thing. And they did it at 5:30 in the morning. … I wonder why they did that.”

On Wednesday around noon, Flaisher says she put in an application for a second permit — this time for a “demonstration” one. That type of permit usually has a 24-hour turnaround, and Flaisher says an employee at NPS told her she would have the new permit in about that time frame.

While Flaisher was trying to obtain a second permit, members of Secret Handshake were working to retrieve their art.

The statue “Best Friends Forever,” featuring President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, was damaged when it was removed Wednesday morning by the National Park Service.

(Secret Handshake)

The statue was not treated kindly upon its removal, said the rep from Secret Handshake, who requested not to be named in keeping with the anonymous nature of the group’s activism. The statue was in several pieces, with heads and knees broken in half. They then spent several hours repairing, rebuilding and “gluing it together” the rep said. “It looks pretty cool, to be honest. It got kind of messed up, but in an interesting way.”

The Times reviewed a video taken by the group’s security that shows workers toppling the statue in the dark and removing it.

“Free speech. There goes Trump, there goes Epstein,” a passerby can be heard saying. “Taxpayers’ dollars.”

The damaged statue was taped back together.

(Secret Handshake)

Throughout Thursday, the Secret Handshake rep said, “we were told [of the permit], it’s approved, it’s approved, it’s approved.”

Flaisher called a little after noon and was told that the permit had not been issued, but the person she spoke with did not know why. An hour later she tried again and this time she was told, “‘No, you will not be issued a permit,’” she says. She pushed back and asked who she could talk to, but nobody would speak with her she says.

“Absolute silence. No one’s called me back with anything. No answer. You don’t have a permit. There is no reason,” said Flaisher. “It must have come from a very high place because nobody’s talking.”

The NPS has not yet responded to a request for comment about why a second permit was denied or why Secret Handshake was not given 24-hour notice before the statue was initially removed.

The rep for Secret Handshake, which has been responsible for four other political satirical statues on the National Mall, including “Poop Desk,” a bronze art installation featuring a pile of feces on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk, says the group is currently considering what to do next with its repaired “Best Friends” statue.

The rep said the group hires security to protect its work at the mall, as mandated by the permit, and that their security was in place Thursday afternoon, getting ready for the statue to be installed for the second time.

“They took video … and the amount of unmarked cars, Park Service cars, city police and giant trucks ready to haul it away if we decided to place it down anyway. … Wow. They were ready,” the rep said. “There were at least 10 vehicles, I would say.”

The question of whether the statue will be allowed to be replaced comes in the midst of a fierce debate about free speech in America that was kicked off by ABC’s suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after the comedian weighed in on the killing of Charlie Kirk.

On a plaque, unknown artists said it was displayed ‘in honour of friendship month’ for the two men.

A mysterious bronze statue called “Best Friends Forever” has popped up on the east end of the National Mall in Washington, DC, showing United States President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, as his past connection to the deceased sex offender continues to rumble on in public discourse.

On Tuesday, the satiric pop-up statue, which shows the two men holding hands with one leg in the air, was captioned, “In honour of friendship month”.

“We celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his ‘closest friend’, Jeffrey Epstein,” a plaque on the installation read.

While there was no immediate claim to the statue, the artwork follows a series of installations that have been critical of Trump in Washington, displayed by an anonymous group.

In June, another anti-Trump statue popped up on the National Mall, this time titled “Dictator Approved”, and showcased an eight-foot-tall sculpture with a gold thumbs up crushing the head of the Statue of Liberty.

But in response to the statue, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told The Washington Post that “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 wrote in an email.

Trump’s connection to Epstein, a former sex offender who died in jail in 2019, has caused a furore among his MAGA base since Trump returned to office in January, infuriating him, with more pressure on case files related to Epstein to be released.

Earlier in September, a US congressional panel released a copy of an alleged “birthday book” that was given to Epstein to celebrate his then-50th birthday.

Within the 238-page book containing messages and photos with friends of the former financier, there was a letter with a signature similar to Trump’s.

Trump has denied that he penned a lascivious birthday message to Epstein amid the sustained scrutiny of his links to the convicted sex offender. Trump is also suing The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for their allegations and coverage of his involvement with Epstein.

Vice President JD Vance slammed accusations of Trump’s involvement in the letter and accused Democrats of “concocting another fake scandal” to “smear President Trump with lies”.

ROUBAIX, France — As statements go, it’s a big one.

A towering mural in France of the Statue of Liberty covering her eyes is racking up millions of views online with its swipe at President Trump’s immigration and deportation policies.

Amsterdam-based street artist Judith de Leeuw described her giant work in the northern French town of Roubaix, which has a large immigrant community, as “a quiet reminder of what freedom should be.”

She said “freedom feels out of reach” for migrants and “those pushed to the margins, silenced, or unseen.”

“I painted her covering her eyes because the weight of the world has become too heavy to witness. What was once a shining symbol of liberty now carries the sorrow of lost meaning,” de Leeuw wrote in a July 4 post on Facebook, when Americans were celebrating Independence Day.

Her depiction of the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French people in the late 1800s, has inspired some sharp criticism.

Rep. Tim Burchett, a Republican lawmaker from Tennessee, wrote in a post on X that the work “disgusts me.” He said he had an uncle who fought and died in France, where U.S. forces saw combat in both World War I and World War II.

In an interview with the Associated Press, de Leeuw was unapologetic.

“I’m not offended to be hated by the Donald Trump movement. I am not sorry. This is the right thing to do,” she said.

The town stood by the work, with its deputy mayor in charge of cultural affairs, Frédéric Lefebvre, telling broadcaster France 3 that “it’s a very strong and powerful political message.”

Since returning to the White House amid anti-immigration sentiment, Trump has launched an unprecedented campaign that has pushed the limits of executive power and clashed with federal judges trying to restrain him. People from various countries have been deported to remote and unrelated places like South Sudan and the small African nation of Eswatini.

Polling by Gallup released last week showed an increasing number of Americans who said immigration is a “good thing” and decreasing support for the type of mass deportations Trump has championed since before he was elected.

The mural in Roubaix is part of an urban street culture festival backed by the town. Roubaix is one of the poorest towns in France. It was economically devastated by the collapse since the 1970s of its once-flourishing textile industry that used to attract migrant workers from elsewhere in Europe, north Africa and beyond.

Plazy writes for the Associated Press. AP journalists Ahmad Seir in Amsterdam and John Leicester in Paris contributed to this report.