President Trump’s state visit to Britain was crashed by an advertising van displaying pictures of the president with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The advertising vehicle was commissioned by campaign group Everyone Hates Elon to drive around the town of Windsor on Wednesday morning as Trump headed to Windsor Castle, around 25 miles west of London. Local authorities took umbrage at the protest and took away the van, complete with digital screens on its sides, according to a spokesperson from the group.
Journalists covering the intervention by the U.K. group were also detained and questioned by police, the spokesperson claimed. One witness told the Daily Beast that police descended on the van as soon as it got close to the castle.
“They came straight into the middle of the road and [said] to the driver, ‘No, you can’t have this! You can’t be here!’ They took the driver to the side and, straight away, another policeman jumped in the van and kept on saying, ‘How do you turn it off?!’” the witness claimed, referring to the image of Trump and Epstein displayed on the vehicle’s screens.
“They wanted to turn it off as quickly as they could, and as soon as they turned it off, they took the van and drove away,” he added.
The spokesperson for Everyone Hates Elon stated that transatlantic relations between the U.S. and the U.K. have become a negative influence.
“We’re sick of the U.S.’s influence on the U.K.-whether it’s billionaires like Elon Musk or billionaire backers like Donald Trump,” they said. “Trump is bringing over tech billionaires to the U.K. this week, just as his former adviser Musk spoke to a far-right rally in central London.”
Musk dialled in to a rally led by a convicted criminal and far-right activist who uses the name Tommy Robinson over the weekend. “Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die,” he told the baying crowd. British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood called his rhetoric “abhorrent.”
Police had already arrested four activists from the group Led by Donkeys for projecting a short film telling the story of Trump’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein on Windsor Castle, Tuesday evening.
The projected film, accompanied by audio, showed interviews with Trump and stills of the president and Prince Andrew smiling and grinning alongside the late sex offender, as reported in the Daily Beast’s newsletter, The Royalist.
The projection also featured the bawdy letter Trump allegedly sent to Epstein in 2003 to mark the financier’s 50th birthday. Trump and the White House have denied the authenticity of the letter.
Led by Donkeys said that activists booked a hotel room opposite the castle months ago. On Monday, they snuck in “our 25,000 lumen projector, concealed in a suitcase,” before beaming the damning images onto the castle.
Everyone Hates Elon also targeted the 11th-century residence on Tuesday, unfurling a 4,300 square-foot photograph of the men together at Mar-a-Lago in 1997 in a bid to “ruin Trump’s U.K. visit.”
The group also unveiled a memorial to Jeffrey Epstein at Trump’s Aberdeen golf course, to “commemorate” their friendship. “We’re ready to make sure Epstein haunts him everywhere he goes,” the group said.
Thames Valley Police did not immediately comment on the claims from the activist group.
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