“If you burn a flag, you get one year in jail — no early exits, no nothing,” Trump said while signing the order.
[snip]
The Department of Justice is ordered to probe all incidents of setting the Stars and Stripes ablaze and bring charges “where prosecution wouldn’t fall afoul of the First Amendment,” White House staff secretary Will Scharf noted.
[snip]
“This may include, but is not limited to, 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,” it states.
Bondi, Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem may also terminate visas, residence permits, naturalization proceedings or other immigration benefits for foreign nationals who burn US flags, the order also stated.
[snip]
“They were burning a lot of flags in Los Angeles,” he told Post columnist Miranda Devine, referring to videos and images of rioters setting Old Glory on fire, while also waving Mexican flags.
Trump has long called for the imprisonment of those who desecrate the US flag and supported legislation in his first term that would have codified the prohibition in a constitutional amendment.
In 1989, the Supreme Court determined in Texas vs. Johnson that incinerating the American flag was an act of “symbolic speech” with constitutional protections.
[snip]
“Through a very sad court,” Trump said Monday of the rulings, “they called it freedom of speech.”
“When you burn the American flag, it incites riots,” protested the president, who was impeached at the end of his first term for allegedly inciting a riot at the US Capitol that halted the congressional count of 2020 electoral votes.