In February, two people vandalized the display cases for the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., supposedly in protest of climate change. They poured paint on them, causing over $50,000 in damage and spurring additional security measures to protect the documents. The rotunda was closed for four days during clean-up, denying thousands of Americans the chance to see one of Washington’s most popular tourist sites.
Both vandals, Jackson Green and Donald Zepeda, had been involved in previous climate “protests.” Green had vandalized a memorial in the National Gallery of Art, and Zepeda had blocked a roadway. They were given leniency for those offenses, but this time, they are being punished more strictly.
That is in part due to the intervention of Colleen Shogan, the archivist of the United States. Green and Zepeda were initially charged with misdemeanors, but those charges were upgraded to felonies. Shogan said in February, “The National Archives Rotunda is the sanctuary for our nation’s founding documents. They are here for all Americans to view and understand the principles of our nation. We take such vandalism very seriously and we will insist that the perpetrators be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
True to her word, Shogan went to federal court on Tuesday to deliver a statement at Green’s sentencing. “I wanted to be in court myself to deliver these remarks on behalf of the National Archives, our Constitution, and every American citizen,” she wrote in a blog post.
Shogan’s statement is meticulous, dignified, patriotic, and worth reading in full:
Thank you, your honor, for allowing me to provide a statement at this sentencing. My name is Colleen Shogan. I am the Archivist of the United States and the head of the National Archives and Records Administration.
As the nation’s records keeper, our mission at the National Archives is to preserve, protect, and share the historical records of the United States. We do that to strengthen our democracy and promote public inquiry. We take our mission very seriously, and work hard to ensure that all Americans have access to the documents we hold in trust.
When he laid the cornerstone for the Archives building in 1933, President Hoover dedicated it in the name of the people of the United States and proclaimed the building a “temple of our history.” Befitting that dedication, the building itself is a National Historic Landmark, and consequently is preserved as a permanent treasure for the nation.
Enshrined in the Rotunda at the heart of the building are the original founding charters of the United States of America — the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. These documents are the physical embodiment of our nation’s core principles and symbolize what it means to be an American.
So when Donald Zepeda and Jackson Green conspired together on Valentine’s Day to defile the encasement of the Constitution, they were not just vandalizing a material object. Rather, they intentionally and willfully assaulted our shared past and the beliefs which unite us as Americans.
I was in the building when the attack occurred, and I was shocked and enraged by what I saw.
When I arrived inside the Rotunda only moments after the attack, I found an unknown pink powder covering the encasement and surrounding marble floor. We had to immediately evacuate, risking injuries as people fled the building. Unwelcome memories of past anthrax and ricin attacks across the Capitol stoked terrible fear in myself and the other senior leaders on the scene.
Once the powder had been identified as paint, a whole new set of challenges arose. The extremely fine paint coated the case for the Constitution and had spread throughout the Rotunda – threatening to stain and permanently disfigure the historic marble.
Complicating matters, the powder had penetrated the outer layer of protection afforded by the encasement, finding its way into the fine details of the intricately cast bronze and between the layers of glass that serve as the first line of defense for the Constitution.
The attack was an emotional buzzsaw for the staff of the National Archives and many across the country. It was like a member of our family had been attacked. People were not only scared, but also horrified and angry.
Thankfully, the National Archives employs world-class conservation staff who were on-scene in minutes. They were able to analyze the paint overnight, and identify a non-invasive way to remove it without permanently damaging the Rotunda. It took over $50,000 of taxpayer dollars and dozens of conservationists, maintenance staff, and specialized emergency clean-up crews spending days on their hands and knees to fully restore the space.
We have also had to make changes to the security in the Rotunda in response to this incident, costing taxpayers more than $100,000 every year for additional safeguarding measures.
I understand an important step in this process is to provide the Court a sense of the financial value of the property that was involved.
The Constitution’s value itself is, of course, incalculable. It is the original parchment penned by Gouverneur Morris and signed by the delegates of the Constitutional Convention at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. It is a seminal document in American and world history. It is irreplaceable. It is the very definition of priceless. There were 13 official copies of the Constitution made when it was signed, one for each of the 13 states. One of those copies famously sold at auction in 2021 for $43.2 million. I would expect the original to be valued significantly higher than that.
The Rotunda and the encasements for the Charters of Freedom are historically valuable as well. As I noted, the entire National Archives Building is a National Historic Landmark, which puts it in the same category as the United States Capitol, the White House, and Independence Hall. Congress appropriated $8.75 million in 1928 — almost $160 million today — to construct the Archives.
The Rotunda of the National Archives Building was designed specifically to serve as a shrine for the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, with custom marble and intricate cast bronze trimmed cases. About twenty years ago, the National Archives updated the Rotunda, using the same marble and bronze but bringing in expertise from the National Institutes of Standards and Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to add sophisticated preservation and monitoring tools to the encasements. The cost of that update alone would be valued at around $4 million today.
It should be clear to anyone that assaulting the encasement of the United States Constitution in the Rotunda of the National Archives Building is not the same as vandalizing a public park or the wall of an office building – physically or symbolically.
As Americans we have the right to free speech, but that does not absolve us of our actions’ consequences. And the consequences for choosing to assault the fundamental records of our nation should be significant.
James Madison viewed the conflict embedded in our separated powers system of government as inherently valuable. Disagreement can foster healthy debate and lead to better outcomes in a representative democracy. However, vandalism and property damage are not what Madison conceived as productive conflict.
Exploding pink powder across the Constitution encasement and the Rotunda did not foster a discussion about climate change; it simply, and tragically, deprived thousands of Americans the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the founding documents while we restored the Rotunda. Such self-centered, shortsighted behavior should not be condoned in a civilized society premised upon the responsible exercise of individual freedom.
Unfortunately, we are seeing these sorts of attacks with increasing frequency. Our cultural heritage sites across the country are being caught in the crosshairs of those who want to make a political statement without engaging in the hard work it takes to effect social change in large, diverse democratic republics such as the United States.
As others have told this court, these attacks on museums, and the unique treasures of our cultural history that we hold in trust for the nation, are not low-level, inconsequential, or victimless crimes. Sending a strong message to clearly establish the significance of these crimes and deter future attacks is essential, not only for the National Archives, but for all cultural institutions across the country.
I respectfully urge you to consider the maximum possible sentence for these crimes. Anything less sends the wrong message to Americans about the rule of law, our system of government, and the principles which enable its peaceful continuity.
Green was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison with 24 months of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay the full cost of the clean-up work. Zepeda will be sentenced on Friday. “While I would have liked to see a longer sentence handed down, I am glad that the judge agreed that a strong message was needed to reflect the significance of these crimes and hopefully deter future attacks for the National Archives, and all cultural institutions across the country,” Shogan wrote on her blog.