A 12-foot statue of President Donald Trump and intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein holding fingers and prancing collectively was erected on the Nationwide Mall early Tuesday.
Three plaques seem alongside the satirical faux-bronze statues, courtesy of a mysterious group that goes by the title The Secret Handshake. The plaques be aware the statues are “in Honor of Friendship Month” in September.
“We celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his ‘closest friend’ Jeffrey Epstein,” one plaque reads.
Different plaques characteristic quotes from a bawdy birthday card Trump apparently as soon as gave Epstein.
In a press release to HuffPost on Tuesday, the nameless chief of the Secret Handshake mentioned the statues communicate for themselves.
“No one else publicly that we know of partied with Donald Trump, traveled with Donald Trump and visited at Mar-a-Lago just as a friend, not just as an associate. Since this is Friendship Month, we wanted to celebrate what is presumably, at least publicly, Donald Trump’s only true friend,” the group’s chief mentioned.
Trump and Epstein spent over a decade operating in the identical social circles or attending numerous high-profile occasions and events collectively. Trump additionally rode on Epstein’s personal aircraft between New York and Florida. Trump had known as Epstein a “terrific guy,” and Epstein mentioned he believed he was Trump’s “closest friend.”
“He was a lot of fun to be with,” Trump advised New York Journal in 2002.
The 2 males had a falling-out a few years in the past, and by the point Epstein was arrested on intercourse trafficking costs in 2019, Trump insisted he was “not a fan.”
The Secret Handshake Group
The Secret Handshake Group
The Secret Handshake Group
Epstein died by suicide in federal jail a month after his arrest, kicking off a firestorm of questions, controversy and conspiracy theories about his dying — and his life, particularly his connection to rich elites who have been launched to younger girls or ladies by means of the disgraced financier.
When Trump ran for president, he leaned closely into conspiracy theories about Epstein and vowed to show these concerned.
However Trump’s thirst for transparency about Epstein’s crimes and associates has seemingly since vanished.
Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi claimed in February that there was an Epstein “client list” on her desk on the Justice Division. A month later, nonetheless, the Justice Division and FBI launched a press release saying Epstein by no means had a shopper checklist and that no additional data tied to the Epstein probe can be made public.
That call was controversial, even amongst Trump’s base and administration. Issues solely bought worse for him in July, when The Wall Avenue Journal reported that the president’s title appeared many occasions in a “truckload” of paperwork reviewed by the Justice Division.
Calls for for the so-called Epstein information to be launched have intensified ever since, together with from girls who mentioned they have been abused by Epstein and his affiliate Ghislane Maxwell. A bipartisan push by members of Congress to have the information launched is in limbo in the intervening time. Reps. Thomas Massie (R.-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) want 218 signatures to power a flooring vote on a invoice they launched that calls for the discharge of the paperwork.
In the meantime, FBI Director Kash Patel has been busy deflecting questions concerning the Epstein information. Throughout a latest congressional listening to, as an alternative of answering questions on Epstein, Patel recited the ABCs.
The Secret Handshake has put up tongue-in-cheek monuments earlier than, together with a collection of bronzed turds that honored the “brave men and women who broke into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to loot, urinate and defecate throughout these hallowed halls in order to overturn an election.”
One other statue of an enormous gold thumb crushing the Statue of Liberty appeared on the Nationwide Mall in June with a plaque on one aspect that learn, “Dictator Approved.”
