The strange saga of a twelve foot tall statue of President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein is back in the spotlight after the artwork reappeared once again in Washington DC. Federal authorities have already taken it down twice, yet it keeps coming back like a prank that refuses to die. This time it showed up outside Busboys and Poets in the U Street Corridor, drawing crowds who stopped to stare and snap photos.
Its return comes at an awkward moment for the White House as lawmakers continue to release tens of thousands of messages from Epstein’s estate. The documents include emails between Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell that mention the president by name. Trump never sent or received any of the emails and he has not been accused of wrongdoing, but the timing adds another layer of tension to an already messy political story.
The artists behind the piece call themselves The Secret Handshake and they seem to enjoy the chaos the statue creates. “Much like Trump’s name in an Epstein email dump, we have popped our head out to say an unannounced hello,” the group said.
The statue is titled “Best Friends Forever” and first appeared on the National Mall on September 23. It stood beside a plaque that read, “We celebrate the long lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his ‘closest friend,’ Jeffrey Epstein.” The installation had a permit to stay until September 28, but officials hauled it away after just a day. The Interior Department told The Washington Post that the display was “not compliant with the permit issued,” though they did not explain exactly why.
Only a week later, the statue returned to the Mall after location manager Carol Flaisher secured another permit for the artists. That comeback happened as the Trump administration faced growing pressure over the investigation into Epstein. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking and abusing underage girls. His death has long fueled intense public scrutiny and speculation.
Over the summer, the Trump administration said there would be no further disclosures on the Epstein case. Since then lawmakers have subpoenaed and released documents from Epstein’s estate and Justice Department officials made public transcripts from a July interview with Maxwell, who is serving a twenty year sentence for helping Epstein abuse girls.
This week a new batch of emails released by the House revealed Epstein telling Maxwell that Trump “spent hours” at his house with one of Epstein’s victims. In another email to author Michael Wolff, Epstein claimed Trump “knew about the girls.” The revelations reportedly triggered private meetings inside the White House Situation Room as officials tried to figure out how to handle the fallout.
Publicly the message from the administration has been blunt. Trump and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt have dismissed the latest email release as a “hoax.” Leavitt wrote on X Thursday, “It is clear this is another Democrat + Mainstream Media hoax, fueled by fake outrage, to distract from the President’s wins.”