WASHINGTON — Federal authorities Monday arrested a man across the street from the White House after he set an American flag on fire the day President Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to crack down on flag burning.
The man, who identified himself as a 20-year combat veteran in a video posted to social media by the news outlet The Bulwark, said, “I’m burning this flag as a protest to that illegal fascist president that sits in that House,” as he pointed toward the White House from Lafayette Square.
The Secret Service said in a statement that it detained the man around 6:15 p.m. ET “for igniting an object” and that he was turned over to U.S. Park Police.
Park Police said they arrested the man for violating a statute that prohibits lighting a fire in a public park.
The arrest came hours after Trump signed an executive order to crack down on “desecration” of the American flag in connection with inciting violence or violating other laws.
The order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to “vigorously prosecute” people who burn the American flag while engaged in other offenses, and it says she “may pursue litigation to clarify the scope of the First Amendment exceptions in this area.”
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in 1989 that the Constitution protects burning the American flag.
Trump’s order does not make flag burning a crime or assess a penalty for it, but it argues that burning flags in a way that is “likely to incite imminent lawless action” or amounts to “fighting words” is not constitutionally protected.
When he signed the order, Trump said: “When you burn the American flag, it incites riots at levels that we’ve never seen before. People go crazy.”
The U.S. attorney for D.C., Jeanine Pirro, has played a key role in the Trump administration’s efforts to exert federal control over parts of Washington and shown a willingness to aggressively go after low-level transgressions. She said this month that her office had charged a man accused of tossing a sandwich at a federal agent in D.C. with felony assault.
