Other federal buildings across Washington, D.C., are also adorned with huge banners of President Trump.
The Department of Justice in Washington on Thursday.Credit…
Large banners of President Trump now hang from multiple federal buildings in Washington, including the nation’s top law enforcement branch, in a bold statement of power and influence over the government.
A long blue banner with Mr. Trump’s visage was draped on the exterior of the Justice Department headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, making it the latest federal building to have a banner with the president’s face. The banner’s lower border says “Make America Safe Again” in capital letters.
The signage is a strikingly prominent indication of how Mr. Trump has eroded the separation that has long existed between the Justice Department and the White House to protect the department from political influence.
That careful distance has been dissolving since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s second term. He has installed allies at the top ranks of the department to oversee a retribution campaign and investigate perceived political enemies. Hundreds of agency lawyers have since been fired, and thousands more have resigned.
The White House referred all questions pertaining to the Justice Department’s banner — including the reason behind its installation, its cost and the duration of its display — to the Justice Department. A spokeswoman for the department said on Friday that the banner celebrates the nation’s 250th anniversary, and the Justice Department’s “work to make America safe again at President Trump’s direction.”
Similar banners were installed at other federal buildings last year, including the Agriculture Department and Labor Department.
The banner hung between columns at the Washington headquarters of the Agriculture Department says “Growing America Since 1862.” It hangs a few columns away from a banner depicting Abraham Lincoln.
An Agriculture Department spokesperson said on Thursday that the department was excited to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, “particularly the roles our farmers and ranchers had in shaping our nation.”
The Department of Agriculture.
The Department of Labor.Credit…
The Trump banner at the Labor Department says, “American Workers First,” also in capital letters, and carries the emblem for the nation’s 250th anniversary. Along the same frontage hangs a banner showing Theodore Roosevelt, with the same wording and emblem.
Those two banners cost roughly $6,000, and were originally created for Labor Day, said Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman for the Labor Department. After receiving “tremendous positive response,” the department decided that they would stay up throughout the celebrations for America’s semiquincentennial, she said.
The banners follow a string of efforts by the administration to emblazon the president’s name and face on everything from coins to national park passes.
Such displays are more often a feature of countries run by dictators, not democratically elected leaders. “This is not just egotistical self-satisfaction, it’s a way of expanding presidential power,” Michael Beschloss, the presidential historian, told The Times recently. “A president is more powerful, I assume he believes, if he is ever-present than if he keeps his head down.”
The same day that the banner was hung on the Justice Department building, Mr. Trump hosted the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace, a new international body he created.
It was held at the Donald J. Trump United States Institute of Peace, a decades-old organization recently renamed for the president.
“Marco named it after me,” Mr. Trump said in his opening remarks at Board of Peace meeting, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat a few feet away. “I had nothing to do with it, I swear I didn’t. I swear. I had no idea.”
