[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
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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.
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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