Anonymous group creates Trump cemetery near president's golf course

BEDMINSTER - A plot of land on or near the president's private Somerset County golf club was vandalized Friday night to resemble a cemetery bearing the Trump name.

"It seems like on Lamington Road there was some vandalism, probably more like mischief than vandalism," Mayor Steve Parker said. "It looks like somebody erected a sign that listed, or tried to make it look like, there was a Trump cemetery."

The faux cemetery was created to protest President Donald Trump, according to a news release from the anonymous activist organization, INDECLINE, an art collective which presented other anti-Trump political art installations in 2016 and 2017 around the country.

"The night before the one year anniversary of President Trump’s inauguration, multiple members of the anonymous activist collective INDECLINE, trespassed and covertly installed 6 tombstones and a large “Trump Cemetery” arch at the site of one of the controversial cemetery plots on the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey," the group said in the release.

READ:Trump wants to open cemetery for NJ golf club members, veterans

In 2015, after Trump National Golf Club went through a lengthy approval process from the township and the state to build a small family cemetery that would have been Trump's final resting place, a representative of the Trump Organization told the Bedminster Township Land Use Board earlier that Trump may instead want to be buried in Florida.

In 2012, Trump had initially submitted plans for a larger cemetery on his Bedminster golf course but withdrew them when he proposed a smaller final burial site for him and his family. But when he decided that he instead wanted to be buried in Florida, Trump returned to the original plan for a larger cemetery.

The township has since approved a proposal for a cemetery with 284 graves available to Trump National members, veterans affiliated with Bedminster and township residents who are not associated with a church.

READ:Branchburg man leads anti-Trump protests with People's Motorcade

Trump's daughter, Ivanka, married Jared Kushner in 2009 at the club. In 2015, when she and her husband were expecting their third child, the Bedminster Land Use Board approved a plan to add 2,265 square feet to the Kushners' cottage by the clubhouse and the golf course, adding three bedrooms, making a total of five.

The anonymous group, INDECLINE, said that since Trump's "plans were finally approved by local officials and the INDECLINE collective thought it would be appropriate to help him break ground."

The group, in its release, said that Trump is "the kind of man who’s destined for monuments" and that the cemetery is "their meager offering for the “Greatest Tyrant of the Twitter Age.” 

The group said that the "art project happened under the cover of darkness, under the guidance of anonymous activists, with the idea of keeping the national discourse from getting so lost in the absurdity of his words that we forget the reality of his actions."

This is the second incident of vandalism and mischief at Trump National Golf Club in recent months. Last September, Hawaii resident was arrested and charged with criminal mischief in relation to damage property at the golf club.

READ:Hawaii man charged with criminal mischief at Trump National in Bedminster

Tillotson, age 61, of Kaneohe, Hawaii, allegedly damaged the putting greens with some sort of substance to display some words on the defaced grass. 

"This is new territory for us," Parker said vandalism targeting the president's golf club. "If this a local Bedminster group that's upset about the cemetery, I will say that there were plenty of public hearings many years ago at the land use board about it, but that was years before Mr. Trump was politically active.

"I guess it's an interesting prank," he added, "but I haven't had anybody in the past two years, any citizens, come up and say, 'We're upset about the cemetery.' 

"After viewing the video, it became obvious the Trump Cemetery prank was not disgruntled local group protesting local approval of the cemetery," Parker said. "It's an odd way to get your message across. Going to a public meeting or calling or emailing your local officials is a better way."

The anonymous group made a video of the process of creating the cemetery and included photos purportedly showing the mock cemetery. The tombstones, six in all, say phrases such as "Our Future," "Decency" and "The Last Snowman."

In its news release, INDECLINE, which has claimed responsibility for other anti-Trump stunts in the past few years, said that it "hopes this installation reminds President Trump that history is written in stone, not in 280 character execrations." 

On Saturday afternoon, the mayor said he wasn't sure what else was placed at the property, adding that the chief of police did tell him it was "political in nature."

The Bedminster Township Police and Somerset County Prosecutor's Office did not respond to requests for comment.

The township police department, Secret Service, Somerset County Prosecutor's Office are aware of it, according to Parker.

"I don't know if it's still there," he said, referring to the faux cemetery. "I suspect that the law enforcement has taken it down by now."

Staff Writer Nick Muscavage: 908-243-6615; ngmuscavage@gannettnj.com