President Trump on Monday signed the “Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag” Executive Order into law, prioritizing the prosecution of crimes that involve the burning of the American flag and potentially opening challenges to the interpretation of the First Amendment protections for flag burning.
It does not appear to make burning the American flag a crime, but crimes that involve burning a flag will be prioritized.
“Our great American Flag is the most sacred and cherished symbol of the United States of America, and of American freedom, identity, and strength,” the order reads.
“Desecrating it is uniquely offensive and provocative. It is a statement of contempt, hostility, and violence against our Nation — the clearest possible expression of opposition to the political union that preserves our rights, liberty, and security. Burning this representation of America may incite violence and riot.”
The order also describes the act as “a calculated act to intimidate and threaten violence against Americans because of their nationality and place of birth,” used by foreign nationals, and it directs the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to “deny, prohibit, terminate, or revoke visas, residence permits, naturalization proceedings, and other immigration benefits, or seek removal from the United States, pursuant to Federal law, including 8 U.S.C. 1182(a), 8 U.S.C. 1424, 8 U.S.C. 1427, 8 U.S.C. 1451(c), and 8 U.S.C. 1227(a).”
It further argues that flag burning, “conducted in a manner that is likely to incite imminent lawless action or that is an action amounting to ‘fighting words,’” is not constitutionally protected under the First Amendment.
The order directs the Department of Justice and the Attorney General to “prioritize the enforcement to the fullest extent possible of our Nation’s criminal and civil laws against acts of American Flag desecration that violate applicable, content-neutral laws, while causing harm unrelated to expression, consistent with the First Amendment,” including “violent crimes; hate crimes, illegal discrimination against American citizens, or other violations of Americans’ civil rights; and crimes against property and the peace, as well as conspiracies and attempts to violate, and aiding and abetting others to violate, such laws.”
The Attorney General is also permitted to “pursue litigation to clarify the scope of the First Amendment exceptions in this area.”
White House Staff Secretary Will Scharff told the President, the order “charges your department of justice with investigating instances of flag burning, and then where there’s evidence of criminal activity, where prosecution wouldn’t fall foul of the First Amendment, it instructs the Department of Justice to prosecute those who are engaged in these instances of flag burning.”
While signing the order into law, President Trump reasoned that the action causes people to go “crazy” and that “what it does is incite to riot.”
“And what the penalty is going to be if you burn a flag, you get one year in jail. No early exits, no nothing,” he said. “you will see flag burning stopping immediately, just like when I signed the Statue and Monument Act— 10 years in jail if you hurt any of our beautiful monuments. Everybody left town. They were gone. Never had a problem after that, it’s pretty amazing.”
WATCH:
Trump: They’re burning flags. All over the world, they burn the American flag. And as you know, through a very sad court, I guess it was a five-to-four decision, they called it freedom of speech, but there’s another reason, which is perhaps much more important. It’s called death because what happens when you burn a flag is the area goes crazy. If you have hundreds of people, they go crazy. You can do other things. You can burn this piece of paper, you can— but when you burn the American flag, it incites riots at levels that we’ve never seen before. People go crazy, in a way, both ways. There are some that are going crazy for doing it. There are others that are angry, angry about them doing it…
And what the penalty is going to be if you burn a flag, you get one year in jail. No early exits, no nothing. You get one year in jail. If you burn a flag, and what it does is incite to riot. I hope they use that language, incite to riot, you burn a flag you get one year in jail. You don’t get 10 years, you don’t get one month, you get one year in jail, and it goes on your record. And you will see flag burning stopping immediately, just like when I signed the Statue and Monument Act— 10 years in jail if you hurt any of our beautiful monuments. Everybody left town. They were gone. Never had a problem after that, it’s pretty amazing. We stopped it, but this is something that’s, I don’t know, in a certain way, it’s equally as important. Some people would say it’s more important because the people in this country don’t want to see our American flag burned and spit on, and by people that are, in many cases, paid agitators.
They’re paid by the radical left to do it. You talk to these people; they don’t even know, half of them, don’t even know what they’re doing. They say, I don’t know they gave me money to do this. I see the same things that you do. They’re bad people that are trying to destroy our nation. That’s not working because I think our nation, now, is the most respected nation anywhere in the world, by far. You saw that with the European leaders on Friday. You saw that with NATO, where they agreed to go from 2%, no pay, to 5% fully paid up, trillions of dollars paid, where they respect your president to a level that they jokingly call me the President of Europe. They call me the President of Europe, which is an honor. I like Europe, and I like those people.
They’re good people; they’re great leaders, and we’ve never had a case where seven plus, really 28— essentially, 35, 38 countries were represented here the other day, 38 European countries and other countries were represented. There was a great meeting, but your country is respected again. I say it all the time: One year ago, our country was dead. Everybody said it. We had a dead country. We were not going to survive. Now, we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. So it’s an honor to be involved, and this group has a lot to do with it right behind me..
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