Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday instructing federal prosecutors to pursue criminal charges against individuals who burn American flags during protests.
The order tells the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, to look at cases where people burned flags and see if they can be charged with other crimes like disturbing the peace or breaking environmental laws.
It’s an attempt by Trump to go around a supreme court decision from 1989, when the court ruled 5-4 in Texas v Johnson that destroying the flag is protected political expression under the first amendment.
That court ruling threw out flag-burning laws in 48 states and made it clear that people have the right to burn flags as a way to express their political views.
“All over the country they’re burning flags,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Monday when he signed the order. “All of over the world they burn the American flag, and as you know, through a very sad court, I guess it was a 5-4 decision, they called it freedom of speech.
Trump also claimed “you burn a flag, you get one year in jail” as he signed the executive order, but the order itself doesn’t include details about a potential jail sentence.
Posted by John3262005
4 Comments
Let’s see if SCOTUS will upend settled case law again to please Trump.
Oh, so Trump is against 5-4 decisions now, huh?
Outlawing burning the flag in protest is a gauranteed way to get me to burn a flag in protest.
This is obviously, blatantly unconstitutional. But the best response should be to burn Trump campaign flags at protests, while wearing the American flag.