A 12-foot statue of convicted felon Donald Trump and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein holding hands and prancing together was erected on the National Mall yesterday.
Three plaques appear alongside the satirical faux-bronze statues, courtesy of a mysterious group that goes by the name The Secret Handshake. The plaques note 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. The other two plaques feature quotes from a bawdy birthday card Trump apparently once gave Epstein.
In a statement, the anonymous leader of the Secret Handshake said the statues speak 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 leader said.
Trump and Epstein spent over a decade running in the same social circles or attending various high-profile events and parties together. Trump also rode on Epstein’s private plane between New York and Florida. Trump had called Epstein a “terrific guy,” and Epstein said he believed he was Trump’s “closest friend.”
“He was a lot of fun to be with,” Trump told New York Magazine in 2002.
Epstein died by suicide in federal prison a month after his arrest, kicking off a firestorm of questions, controversy and conspiracy theories about his death — and his life, especially his connection to wealthy elites who were introduced to young women or girls through the disgraced financier. When Trump ran for president, he leaned heavily into conspiracy theories about Epstein and vowed to expose those involved.
Attorney General Pam Bondi initially claimed that there was an Epstein “client list” on her desk at the Justice Department. A month later, however, the Justice Department and FBI released a statement saying there was never a client list and that no further records tied to the Epstein probe would be made public.
That decision was controversial, even among Trump’s base and administration. Things only got worse for him in July, when The Wall Street Journal reported that the president’s name appeared many times in a “truckload” of documents reviewed by the Justice Department. Demands for the so-called Epstein files to be released have intensified ever since, including from women who said they were abused by Epstein and his associate Ghislane Maxwell.
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