WASHINGTON (AP) — A person has been arrested in connection with vandalism at The World War II Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced Friday.
Pirro announced on X that her office was filing two felony charges against Melissa L. Farris. Pirro said the felony charges are “Depredation Against Property of the United States and Destruction of Veterans’ Memorials.” The offenses carry penalties of up to ten years in prison.
It was unclear when Farris might be arraigned. The Public Defender’s office said she was not yet listed in the system and had not been assigned an attorney.
The arrest followed the discovery of the vandalism, which included bubbles filling a fountain and “Clean hands dirty $” written in red paint.
“Vandalizing our World War II Memorial is a despicable attack on a sacred monument honoring the Americans who fought and died for our freedom. Those Americans include my father and grandfather,” Pirro wrote.
The vandalism comes weeks after President Donald Trump said the nearby Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was deliberately damaged, without providing evidence. Vandalism charges against multiple people were filed and swiftly dropped after Pirro said the cause of the damage was botched repairs at the pool.
“Our beautiful World War II Memorial was just hit by Spray Painting Vandals,” he said on Friday on his Truth Social site. “THERE CAN BE NO GREATER INSULT TO THOSE AMERICAN HEROES WHO DIED IN WORLD WAR II.”
The Interior Department said that the U.S. Park Police were on the scene following the Thursday vandalism and an investigation was ongoing. “The public should know we will find the person responsible for this disgusting act,” the department said.
The Friends of the National World War II Memorial, a nonprofit organization that helps maintain the site, said: “There are many places in our country for expression, debate, and disagreement. A national memorial honoring those who served and those who never returned home should never be used as a canvas for vandalism.”
The Veterans of Foreign Wars called the vandalism “an act of profound disrespect, a slap in the face to the veterans who served and sacrificed and to the families who carried that burden at home.”
The World War II Memorial is just east of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the Mall. After a botched repair job earlier this year left the pool with peeling blue sealant and green algae, Trump blamed the issues on vandalism without providing evidence.
“First the Reflecting Pool, now this,” Trump said in his Truth Social post. “We are on their trail! Where do these animals come from???”
A former Olympian was charged in late July with deliberately damaging the Reflecting Pool, but the Justice Department later moved to dismiss that case, saying evidence prosecutors had received refuted the idea that vandals were to blame.
Trump sharply criticized Pirro’s assessment that damage to the Reflecting Pool was the result of shoddy construction and not the work of vandals, as he claimed.
The case dismissal was an embarrassing setback for a Justice Department that had previously echoed Trump’s claims and billed the prosecution as accountability for damage at a Washington landmark, a pet project of Trump. Pirro’s decision to drop the case was also a rare moment during Trump’s second term of an aide or political appointee openly defying him.
Pirro blamed the Interior Department for providing “less than fulsome information at the outset of the case.” It was a jarring turn in position from Pirro, who had claimed the government’s case was built on “tremendous evidence” when she announced the indictment.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in a posting on X appeared to push back against Pirro’s criticism, claiming some of the acts of vandalism were captured on video.
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