Skip to content

Saturday, Jun 27, 2020

Can destroying a veterans’ memorial result in a prison sentence of up to 10 years?

Peter Lagershausen, Gigafact Foundry
yes

A 2003 statute specifically protects "any structure, plaque, statue, or other monument on public property commemorating the service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States."

President Trump cited that law, first in a Tweet and then a few days later in an Executive Order which also referred to multiple other laws and provisions protecting federal property from what it termed "senseless destruction." As for monuments and memorials on state or local government property or in private hands, the order says that state and local law-enforcement agencies failing to protect such property will be "subject to the withholding of federal support."

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

About fact briefs

Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network.

See all fact briefs

Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.

Learn More

Latest Fact Briefs

Be a Friend of facts

Help us fund more great fact briefs like this one.