An Army veteran has been arrested after burning an American flag outside the White House in defiance of Donald Trump’s new executive order targeting the act, long seen as a symbol of free speech and expression.
The man, identified as Jay Carey, doused an American flag with accelerant Monday before setting it on fire and railing against what he claimed was Trump’s “illegal” order prohibiting the desecration of flags.
“No president can make a law period. No Congress shall make a law infringing on First Amendment rights,” said Carey, who described himself as a 20-year combat veteran of the U.S. Army.
“I’m burning this flag as a protest to that illegal fascist president that sits in that house. We burn this flag in protest to that president who feels that it’s his right to do whatever he wants, make whatever law he wants, regardless if it’s legal or illegal.”
Video posted on Instagram shows Secret Service agents dousing the blaze with a fire extinguisher and detaining Carey, although not for burning the flag. Instead, he was arrested for violating a law that prohibits setting fires in federal parks.
The Secret Service confirmed to the Daily Beast that it detained an individual in Lafayette Park “for igniting an object.”
Carey was handed over to the U.S. Park Police, which has jurisdiction over Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C. The Park Police said it charged an individual in connection with violating a law which prohibits the lighting or maintaining of a fire in federal parks, except in designated areas
Trump signed the executive order on Monday, making it a federal offense to burn or desecrate the American flag.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that flag burning is protected under the First Amendment, most notably in the case of Gregory “Joey” Johnson, who successfully argued that the Constitution protected his right to set fire to a flag outside the 1984 Republican convention.
Trump’s order attempts to skirt the court’s stance by outlawing flag burning if it is done to “incite imminent lawless action or serve as a form of ‘fighting words.’”
Another video posted on social media shows Carey speaking after his being released from custody.
“I did this in protest of what Donald Trump did with that executive order, saying that it was illegal to burn an American flag. He can’t make orders, and I want to put it to the test,” Carey said. “So I did.”
The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.
