Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence, 40081-40084 [2020-14509]

Agencies

• Executive Office of the President

[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 128 (Thursday, July 2, 2020)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 40081-40084]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-14509]



[[Page 40079]]

Vol. 85

Thursday,

No. 128

July 2, 2020

Part V





The President





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Executive Order 13933--Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and 
Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence



Proclamation 10054--Amendment to Proclamation 10052


                        Presidential Documents 



Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 128 / Thursday, July 2, 2020 / 
Presidential Documents

___________________________________________________________________

Title 3--
The President

[[Page 40081]]

                Executive Order 13933 of June 26, 2020

                
Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and 
                Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence

                By the authority vested in me as President by the 
                Constitution and the laws of the United States of 
                America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

                Section 1. Purpose. The first duty of government is to 
                ensure domestic tranquility and defend the life, 
                property, and rights of its citizens. Over the last 5 
                weeks, there has been a sustained assault on the life 
                and property of civilians, law enforcement officers, 
                government property, and revered American monuments 
                such as the Lincoln Memorial. Many of the rioters, 
                arsonists, and left-wing extremists who have carried 
                out and supported these acts have explicitly identified 
                themselves with ideologies--such as Marxism--that call 
                for the destruction of the United States system of 
                government. Anarchists and left-wing extremists have 
                sought to advance a fringe ideology that paints the 
                United States of America as fundamentally unjust and 
                have sought to impose that ideology on Americans 
                through violence and mob intimidation. They have led 
                riots in the streets, burned police vehicles, killed 
                and assaulted government officers as well as business 
                owners defending their property, and even seized an 
                area within one city where law and order gave way to 
                anarchy. During the unrest, innocent citizens also have 
                been harmed and killed.

                These criminal acts are frequently planned and 
                supported by agitators who have traveled across State 
                lines to promote their own violent agenda. These 
                radicals shamelessly attack the legitimacy of our 
                institutions and the very rule of law itself.

                Key targets in the violent extremists' campaign against 
                our country are public monuments, memorials, and 
                statues. Their selection of targets reveals a deep 
                ignorance of our history, and is indicative of a desire 
                to indiscriminately destroy anything that honors our 
                past and to erase from the public mind any suggestion 
                that our past may be worth honoring, cherishing, 
                remembering, or understanding. In the last week, 
                vandals toppled a statue of President Ulysses S. Grant 
                in San Francisco. To them, it made no difference that 
                President Grant led the Union Army to victory over the 
                Confederacy in the Civil War, enforced Reconstruction, 
                fought the Ku Klux Klan, and advocated for the 
                Fifteenth Amendment, which guaranteed freed slaves the 
                right to vote. In Charlotte, North Carolina, the names 
                of 507 veterans memorialized on a World War II monument 
                were painted over with a symbol of communism. And 
                earlier this month, in Boston, a memorial commemorating 
                an African-American regiment that fought in the Civil 
                War was defaced with graffiti. In Madison, Wisconsin, 
                rioters knocked over the statue of an abolitionist 
                immigrant who fought for the Union during the Civil 
                War. Christian figures are now in the crosshairs, too. 
                Recently, an influential activist for one movement that 
                has been prominent in setting the agenda for 
                demonstrations in recent weeks declared that many 
                existing religious depictions of Jesus and the Holy 
                Family should be purged from our places of worship.

                Individuals and organizations have the right to 
                peacefully advocate for either the removal or the 
                construction of any monument. But no individual or 
                group has the right to damage, deface, or remove any 
                monument by use of force.

[[Page 40082]]

                In the midst of these attacks, many State and local 
                governments appear to have lost the ability to 
                distinguish between the lawful exercise of rights to 
                free speech and assembly and unvarnished vandalism. 
                They have surrendered to mob rule, imperiling community 
                safety, allowing for the wholesale violation of our 
                laws, and privileging the violent impulses of the mob 
                over the rights of law-abiding citizens. Worse, they 
                apparently have lost the will or the desire to stand up 
                to the radical fringe and defend the fundamental truth 
                that America is good, her people are virtuous, and that 
                justice prevails in this country to a far greater 
                extent than anywhere else in the world. Some 
                particularly misguided public officials even appear to 
                have accepted the idea that violence can be virtuous 
                and have prevented their police from enforcing the law 
                and protecting public monuments, memorials, and statues 
                from the mob's ropes and graffiti.

                My Administration will not allow violent mobs incited 
                by a radical fringe to become the arbiters of the 
                aspects of our history that can be celebrated in public 
                spaces. State and local public officials' abdication of 
                their law enforcement responsibilities in deference to 
                this violent assault must end.

                Sec. 2. Policy. (a) It is the policy of the United 
                States to prosecute to the fullest extent permitted 
                under Federal law, and as appropriate, any person or 
                any entity that destroys, damages, vandalizes, or 
                desecrates a monument, memorial, or statue within the 
                United States or otherwise vandalizes government 
                property. The desire of the Congress to protect Federal 
                property is clearly reflected in section 1361 of title 
                18, United States Code, which authorizes a penalty of 
                up to 10 years' imprisonment for the willful injury of 
                Federal property. More recently, under the Veterans' 
                Memorial Preservation and Recognition Act of 2003, 
                section 1369 of title 18, United States Code, the 
                Congress punished with the same penalties the 
                destruction of Federal and in some cases State-
                maintained monuments that honor military veterans. 
                Other criminal statutes, such as the Travel Act, 
                section 1952 of title 18, United States Code, permit 
                prosecutions of arson damaging monuments, memorials, 
                and statues on State grounds in some cases. Civil 
                statutes like the Public System Resource Protection 
                Act, section 100722 of title 54, United States Code, 
                also hold those who destroy certain Federal property 
                accountable for their offenses. The Federal Government 
                will not tolerate violations of these and other laws.

                    (b) It is the policy of the United States to 
                prosecute to the fullest extent permitted under Federal 
                law, and as appropriate, any person or any entity that 
                participates in efforts to incite violence or other 
                illegal activity in connection with the riots and acts 
                of vandalism described in section 1 of this order. 
                Numerous Federal laws, including section 2101 of title 
                18, United States Code, prohibit the violence that has 
                typified the past few weeks in some cities. Other 
                statutes punish those who participate in or assist the 
                agitators who have coordinated these lawless acts. Such 
                laws include section 371 of title 18, United States 
                Code, which criminalizes certain conspiracies to 
                violate Federal law, section 2 of title 18, United 
                States Code, which punishes those who aid or abet the 
                commission of Federal crimes, and section 2339A of 
                title 18, United States Code, which prohibits as 
                material support to terrorism efforts to support a 
                defined set of Federal crimes. Those who have joined in 
                recent violent acts around the United States will be 
                held accountable.
                    (c) It is the policy of the United States to 
                prosecute to the fullest extent permitted under Federal 
                law, and as appropriate, any person or any entity that 
                damages, defaces, or destroys religious property, 
                including by attacking, removing, or defacing 
                depictions of Jesus or other religious figures or 
                religious art work. Federal laws prohibit, under 
                certain circumstances, damage or defacement of 
                religious property, including the Church Arson 
                Prevention Act of 1996, section 247 of title 18, United 
                States Code, and section 371 of title 18, United States 
                Code. The Federal Government will not tolerate 
                violations of these laws designed to protect the free 
                exercise of religion.

[[Page 40083]]

                    (d) It is the policy of the United States, as 
                appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to 
                withhold Federal support tied to public spaces from 
                State and local governments that have failed to protect 
                public monuments, memorials, and statues from 
                destruction or vandalism. These jurisdictions' recent 
                abandonment of their law enforcement responsibilities 
                with respect to public monuments, memorials, and 
                statues casts doubt on their willingness to protect 
                other public spaces and maintain the peace within them. 
                These jurisdictions are not appropriate candidates for 
                limited Federal funds that support public spaces.
                    (e) It is the policy of the United States, as 
                appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to 
                withhold Federal support from State and local law 
                enforcement agencies that have failed to protect public 
                monuments, memorials, and statues from destruction or 
                vandalism. Unwillingness to enforce State and local 
                laws in the face of attacks on our history, whether 
                because of sympathy for the extremists behind this 
                violence or some other improper reason, casts doubt on 
                the management of these law enforcement agencies. These 
                law enforcement agencies are not appropriate candidates 
                for limited Federal funds that support State and local 
                police.

                Sec. 3. Enforcing Laws Prohibiting the Desecration of 
                Public Monuments, the Vandalism of Government Property, 
                and Recent Acts of Violence. (a) The Attorney General 
                shall prioritize within the Department of Justice the 
                investigation and prosecution of matters described in 
                subsections 2(a), (b), and (c) of this order. The 
                Attorney General shall take all appropriate enforcement 
                action against individuals and organizations found to 
                have violated Federal law through these investigations.

                    (b) The Attorney General shall, as appropriate and 
                consistent with applicable law, work with State and 
                local law enforcement authorities and Federal agencies 
                to ensure the Federal Government appropriately provides 
                information and assistance to State and local law 
                enforcement authorities in connection with their 
                investigations or prosecutions for the desecration of 
                monuments, memorials, and statues, regardless of 
                whether such structures are situated on Federal 
                property.

                Sec. 4. Limiting Federal Grants for Jurisdictions and 
                Law Enforcement Agencies that Permit the Desecration of 
                Monuments, Memorials, or Statues. The heads of all 
                executive departments and agencies shall examine their 
                respective grant programs and apply the policies 
                established by sections 2(d) and (e) of this order to 
                all such programs to the extent that such application 
                is both appropriate and consistent with applicable law.

                Sec. 5. Providing Assistance for the Protection of 
                Federal Monuments, Memorials, Statues, and Property. 
                Upon the request of the Secretary of the Interior, the 
                Secretary of Homeland Security, or the Administrator of 
                General Services, the Secretary of Defense, the 
                Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland 
                Security shall provide, as appropriate and consistent 
                with applicable law, personnel to assist with the 
                protection of Federal monuments, memorials, statues, or 
                property. This section shall terminate 6 months from 
                the date of this order unless extended by the 
                President.

                Sec. 6. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order 
                shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or 
the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget 
relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

                    (b) This order shall be implemented consistent with 
                applicable law and subject to the availability of 
                appropriations.

[[Page 40084]]

                    (c) This order is not intended to, and does not, 
                create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, 
                enforceable at law or in equity by any party against 
                the United States, its departments, agencies, or 
                entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any 
                other person.
                    (d) This order is not intended to, and does not, 
                affect the prosecutorial discretion of the Department 
                of Justice with respect to individual cases.
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

                THE WHITE HOUSE,

                    June 26, 2020.

[FR Doc. 2020-14509
Filed 7-1-20; 11:15 am]
Billing code 3295-F0-P