{"id":2050631,"date":"2025-09-26T01:45:57","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T01:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2050631"},"modified":"2025-09-26T01:45:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T01:45:57","slug":"trump-and-epstein-statue-reinstallation-denied-after-its-removal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/trump-and-epstein-statue-reinstallation-denied-after-its-removal\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Epstein statue reinstallation denied after its removal"},"content":{"rendered":"

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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. <\/p>\n

The saga, which made the rounds on late-night TV this week, did not stop there.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the group responsible for creating the statue \u2014 an anonymous collective of \u201csatirical activists\u201d called the Secret Handshake \u2014 said the National Park Service denied a second permit to reinstall the controversial statue, which featured a plaque reading, \u201cWe celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his \u2018closest friend,\u2019 Jeffrey Epstein.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThe statue was removed because it was not compliant with the permit issued,\u201d Interior Department spokesperson Elizabeth Peace told celebrity.land,<\/a> citing a height discrepancy.<\/p>\n

The statue, spray-painted bronze and titled \u201cBest Friends Forever,\u201d 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. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a job Flaisher says she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing this for so long. I\u2019ve never had one rejected, ever, ever, ever,\u201d said Flaisher. \u201cI\u2019ve never been thrown off of the property. I\u2019ve never heard of such a thing. And they did it at 5:30 in the morning. … I wonder why they did that.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday around noon, Flaisher says she put in an application for a second permit \u2014 this time for a \u201cdemonstration\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

While Flaisher was trying to obtain a second permit, members of Secret Handshake were working to retrieve their art.<\/p>\n

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The statue \u201cBest Friends Forever,\u201d featuring President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands, was damaged when it was removed Wednesday morning by the National Park Service. <\/p>\n

(Secret Handshake)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

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\u2019s activism. The statue was in several pieces, with heads and knees broken in half. They then spent several hours repairing, rebuilding and \u201cgluing it together\u201d the rep said. \u201cIt looks pretty cool, to be honest. It got kind of messed up, but in an interesting way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Times reviewed a video taken by the group\u2019s security that shows workers toppling the statue in the dark and removing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cFree speech. There goes Trump, there goes Epstein,\u201d a passerby can be heard saying. \u201cTaxpayers\u2019 dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"A <\/picture>\n
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The damaged statue was taped back together.<\/p>\n

(Secret Handshake)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Throughout Thursday, the Secret Handshake rep said, \u201cwe were told [of the permit], it\u2019s approved, it\u2019s approved, it\u2019s approved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flaisher called a little after noon and was told that the permit had not been issue, but the person she spoke with did not know why. An hour later she tried again and this time she was told, \u201c\u2018No, you will not be issued a permit,\u2019\u201d she says. She pushed back and asked who she could talk to, but nobody would speak with her she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolute silence. No one\u2019s called me back with anything. No answer. You don\u2019t have a permit. There is no reason,\u201d said Flaisher. \u201cIt must have come from a very high place because nobody\u2019s talking.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The rep for Secret Handshake, which has been responsible for four other political satirical statues on the National Mall, including \u201cPoop Desk,\u201d a bronze art installation featuring a pile of feces on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2019s desk, says the group is currently considering what to do next with its repaired \u201cBest Friends\u201d statue.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey 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,\u201d the rep said. \u201cThere were at least 10 vehicles, I would say.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s suspension of \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d after the comedian weighed in on the killing of Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2050632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2050631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Trump-and-Epstein-statue-reinstallation-denied-after-its-removal.com2F012F952F6369841546af8178b40f8c47.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2050631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2050631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2050631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2050632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2050631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2050631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2050631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}