Speaking during the same press conference from the White House in which he announced that his administration would be taking severe and large-scale action to end the massive crime problem in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump announced that those who attack and try to destroy statues will face ten long years in prison for having done so.
As background, unlike the flag-burning that President Trump wants to punish with jail time, there is already statutory authority for President Trump and the federal government he controls to crack down on statue-destroyers. Under 18 U.S. Code ยง 1361, destroying goverment property like statues carries a 10-year prison sentence.
Specifically, that statute provides, “Whoever willfully injures or commits any depredation against any property of the United States, or of any department or agency thereof, or any property which has been or is being manufactured or constructed for the United States, or any department or agency thereof, or attempts to commit any of the foregoing offenses, shall be punished as follows.”
It goes on to note, “If the damage or attempted damage to such property exceeds the sum of $1,000, by a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than ten years, or both; if the damage or attempted damage to such property does not exceed the sum of $1,000, by a fine under this title or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.”
So, as many of the statues destroyed are gorgeous pieces of our history and are thus worth well over one thousand dollars in modern times, it would be very possible for the federal government to prosecute statue destroyers and get them locked up for a decade, as President Trump said he wants to.
In any case, speaking during the Monday, August 10 press conference in which he announced the crackdown on crime in DC, President Trump said, “If you so much as touch or even think about destroying a statue or monument in Washington DC you go to jail for 10 years.” Watch him here:
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Announcing that the DC area will be cleaned up by his administration during the same press conference from the White House on Monday, President Trump said, “We’re here for a very serious purpose. Very serious, very. Something’s out of control. But we’re going to put it in control very quickly, like we did in the southern border. I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse. This is Liberation Day in D.C., and we’re going to take our capital back.”
He added that the vagrancy problem will be dealt with too, saying, “We’re going to be removing homeless encampments from all over our parks, our beautiful, beautiful parks, which now a lot of people can’t walk on. They’ve been very, very dirty, very — got a lot of problems. But we’ve already started that. We’re moving the encampments away, trying to take care of people. Some of those people, we don’t know how they even got there. And some of those people are from different countries, different parts of the world. Nobody knows who they are. They have no idea.”
He further added, on that point, “But they’re there getting rid of the people from underpasses and public spaces from all over the city. There are many places that they can go, and we’re going to help them as much as you can help. But they’ll not be allowed to turn our capital into a wasteland for the world to see.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video