Interior Secretary Bernhardt: Destruction of government is a crime, comes with a ‘very severe penalty’
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt reacts to protesters continuing to tear down statues nationwide on ‘America’s Newsroom.’
Secretary of Interior David Bernhardt said on Friday that the federal government will provide law enforcement the “manpower” to crack down on historic monument vandals.
“We are ensuring we have an opportunity to arrest individuals. We were asking the Department of Justice to prosecute them to the full extent of the law,” Bernhardt told “America’s Newsroom.”
Bernhardt said that there are severe punishments for criminals who deliberately destroy government property.
“We will be asking the Justice Department to utilize that. In addition, we are providing our great law enforcement professionals with all of the tools they ask for to ensure they can do their job to protect these resources for the American public,” Bernhardt said.
President Trump used much of his speech in Arizona Tuesday evening to deride his liberal opponents and criticize their rhetoric amid weeks of protests against police brutality and racial injustice.
Speaking at a “Students for Trump” event inside a church in Phoenix, Trump railed against the “oppressive left-wing ideology” and criticized the calls to remove statues of and monuments of controversial historical figures.
"The radical left hates our history, hates our values,” Trump said. “This is not the behavior of a peaceful movement. It is the behavior of a totalitarian movement.”
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
Bernhardt said that the federal government has engaged in a process to examine the security of the monuments. He said the monuments were important to communities when they were placed.
“Obviously, certain monuments and memorials have a higher level of security, but we're in a process of securing, doing just that, deciding what we need,” Bernhardt said.
“There are a lot of monuments and memorials that communities and Congress have placed on public land, often with great fanfare," he added. "Many of these monuments, when you go back and look at them -- when they were commemorated and first displayed, it was with the presence of presidents at the events.”
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox