New Trump-Epstein Statue Appears in D.C. as DOJ Hides Key Files

Yet another massive piece of anti-Epstein class protest art has appeared on Washington, D.C.’s National Mall—this time depicting President Donald Trump and disgraced sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein embracing in the Jack and Rose pose from the movie Titanic.

The statue is titled “The King of the World.” Trump stands right up behind Epstein, holding out his outstretched arms while slightly nuzzling his cheek. The accompanying plaque reads, “The tragic love story between Jack and Rose was built on luxurious travel, raucous parties, and secret nude sketches. This monument honors the bond between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, a friendship seemingly built on luxurious travel, raucous parties, and secret nude sketches.”

This is at least the fourth piece of protest art placed by a group called the Secret Handshake, whose members choose to remain anonymous. They also placed a poop statue in critique of the January 6 insurrectionists, a statue of Trump and Epstein holding hands, and most recently a giant replica of Trump’s unsettling birthday letter to Epstein.

This statue comes as questions swirl around an FBI interview mentioned in the Justice Department’s Epstein files, in which a woman says she was assaulted by Trump when she was around 13 years old. The DOJ has withheld some files related to the allegation and removed other documents that also mention Trump.

The installation will be on the Mall until Friday, March 13.

Florida gubernatorial hopeful James Fishback is a hero of the Republican Party’s growing sect of young white nationalists. He’s also a laughingstock among his own staffers, according to a series of text messages obtained by The Bulwark.

Fishback is $200,000 in debt due to a legal battle with his former employer Greenlight Capital, a hedge fund at which he was reportedly a low-achieving junior “research analyst.” When he started his own firm, that title was mysteriously bumped to “head of macro”—a promotion his former employer evidently did not appreciate. Fishback’s legal bills could balloon to nearly $2 million, and his staffers are concerned about their boss’s ability to pay.

Bryant Fulgham served as Fishback’s county outreach chair before departing the campaign on February 18 after being threatened with what he believed was a demotion. Now he’s sent The Bulwark texts and photographs from his time at the campaign.

“Jesus Christ,” Fulgham told The Bulwark, “I’ve created Frankenstein.” (He likely meant Frankenstein’s monster.)

In a conversation over text in February, campaign manager Emma Wright claimed that Fishback’s couch had been repossessed by debt collectors.

“Oh my god shit. We’re gonna be sleeping on the floor soon up there,” Fulgham wrote, adding two weeping emojis.

Wright joked that Fishback’s Tesla would be next. “Telsa (also being seized): STAY STRONG COUCH,” she wrote, adding a black fist-up emoji.

Last week, Greenlight Capital asked a judge to determine that the Tesla which Fishback drives on the campaign trail belongs to him and not his father. If the judge concurs, the car could be repossessed.

In another conversation in February, Wright lamented that her boss should “just give [Greenlight] the Rolex and call it a day.” Fishback denied ever owning a Rolex.

“He claims he lost it or something idk,” Wright added.

“Yeah I lost it in my safety deposit box,” Fulgham joked.

The text messages are not particularly flattering toward Fishback. In other messages to Fulgham, Wright complained that Fishback gave her an “ass blasting” over campaign plans. Whatever that means, Fishback did it twice, Wright said.

The texts revealed that staffers also used racial epithets and homophobic rhetoric. At another point, Wright dismissed holding events for college students—who provide a lot of enthusiasm for Fishback’s campaign—because they’re too “broke.”

Yet more evidence has emerged from the Epstein files suggesting that Donald Trump was well aware of the child sex trafficker’s criminal empire.

The Justice Department has slow-rolled the congressionally mandated release of the Epstein files, only releasing a fraction of the sweeping investigation to the public despite the December deadline. The agency held onto one particularly disturbing allegation until last week, when it released an FBI memo detailing an interview with a victim of Epstein’s who accused Trump of practically being in the same room while she was abused.

Epstein assaulted the Chilean-born Jane Doe on several occasions. In 2004, the pedophilic financier took her—then a 16-year-old girl—up the elevator of his seven-story Manhattan townhome, into the massage parlor, where he forced her to strip and rub his body as he spoke to Trump on speaker phone, the victim told federal investigators.

The victim claimed that she was a high school junior at the time. The FBI interview, which took place July 15, 2020, records the unidentified woman’s birth year as 1986.

“EPSTEIN got on the massage table and was on a speakerphone call with DONALD TRUMP,” the FBI memo reads. “[The victim] started getting undressed, and they started massaging him. (The victim) started massaging EPSTEIN’s feet and pointed to his back.”

The White House vehemently denied that Trump had any involvement with Epstein’s criminal activities, claiming that the unnamed woman was mentally unwell.

“These are completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence, from a sadly disturbed woman who has an extensive criminal history,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to The Daily Beast.

It’s far from the only time Trump appears in the Epstein files. Trump is mentioned more than 38,000 times in the document cache, according to a New York Times review. All in all, Trump was flagged in more than 5,300 files in the document cache, according to the Times.

In another nauseating victim interview, the FBI noted allegations from a victim who claimed that Trump attempted to force her into giving him oral sex.

She remembered that Trump didn’t like the fact that she was a tomboy, and told her something to the effect of, “Let me teach you how little girls are supposed to be.” He then unzipped his pants and put her head “down to his penis.” She “bit the shit out of it,” and Trump “struck her,” saying something to the effect of “Get this little bitch the hell out of here,” according to the interview. She was between 13 and 15 years old at the time.

Recent reports indicate that the DOJ has only released a fraction of the Epstein files, potentially holding onto upward of 50 terabytes that the agency has not yet disclosed. The recent releases, which include millions of pages of documents, amount to roughly 300 gigabytes, or 2 percent of the estimated total.

One of Donald Trump’s most outspoken attorneys is facing discipline over ethics violations. 

Ed Martin, an employee at the Justice Department, is in trouble with Washington, D.C.’s professional conduct investigator for sending a letter to the dean of the Georgetown University Law Center last year saying his DOJ office wouldn’t hire any graduates from the law school due to its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. 

A complaint was filed by Hamilton Fox, who serves as disciplinary counsel for the district, giving him prosecutor-like powers on disciplining attorneys. Professional conduct proceedings will now begin for Martin, where he could face sanctions or even lose his law license. It’s the first such action against a lawyer in the Trump administration. 

“Acting in his official capacity and speaking on behalf of the government, he used coercion to punish or suppress a disfavored viewpoint, the teaching and promotion of ‘DEI,’” said Fox in the complaint. “He demanded that Georgetown Law relinquish its free speech and religious rights in order to continue to obtain a benefit, employment opportunities for its students.”

Trump tried to name Martin as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia early in his second term, only for him to be removed after it became apparent that the Senate would not confirm his appointment. Martin, a former political operative in Missouri, right-wing talk show host, and January 6 apologist, has had a rocky tenure in the Trump administration. 

Martin threatened anyone who criticized Elon Musk’s DOGE effort in its early days with legal action, and the methods he used to target prominent Democrats for criminal charges worried Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche so much that he reportedly “encouraged” a federal grand jury to investigate Martin for potential misconduct.  

Now it appears his attacks on DEI in service of the Trump administration have led to legal trouble. It would be quite the story if Martin ends up facing sanctions or losing his law license for attacking DEI, something every Republican, led by Trump, is doing these days. It might even end up protecting DEI initiatives. 

The Pentagon spent an estimated $5.6 billion on munitions alone during the first two days of Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran, three U.S. officials told The Washington Post. And every dollar of that was spent without congressional approval.

This figure, which was delivered to Congress Monday, significantly dwarfs the Pentagon’s preliminary cost estimate of $1 billion per day. Some GOP lawmakers told Politico they’d received estimates that were closer to $2 billion.

The Post report comes as Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Tuesday “will be the most intense day of strikes,” just hours after Trump claimed the war “was very complete.”

The officials who spoke to the Post did not disclose what kinds of munitions were fired in the U.S. military’s opening salvo, but U.S. Central Command confirmed that the U.S. has fired more than 2,000 munitions and struck more than 5,000 targets.

Multiple outlets have reported the use of precision weapons including Tomahawk cruise missiles, which cost $2.2 million each. Reports indicate that the U.S. may have used one of these missiles in a deadly strike at a girls’ primary school that killed 175 people, many of whom were children.

But munitions aren’t the only costs, according to the Center for American Progress. Elaine McCusker, who served as deputy undersecretary of defense during the first Trump administration, estimated that it cost $630 million to assemble the largest force of U.S. military assets to the Middle East in decades before the first shot was even fired. Only days into the fighting, a friendly fire incident downed three F-15 fighter jets, costing roughly $351 million.

Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine told reporters last week they would transition away from precision munitions in favor of laser-guided bombs, which are far less expensive. Still, as the fighting drags on, the cost to U.S. taxpayers continues to balloon.

The Trump administration is expected to submit a supplemental defense budget in the coming days—asking for billions more to keep dropping bombs.