Trump to sign order directing DOJ to criminally charge flag burning despite being protected speech

Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order directing the Justice Department to re-examine the feasibility of issuing criminal charges against Americans or others on U.S. soil who engage in flag-burning.

A controversial means of protest, burning the American flag is an act that has long been viewed by the Supreme Court as a protected First Amendment right. News of Trump’s order signals a willingness to relitigate that legal precedent before the nation’s highest legal authority.

He is set to sign the order later Thursday. NewsNation first reported the impending executive order.

Trump has personally condemned protesters for burning the American flag in the past, and has even called for a constitutional amendment to scale back free speech protections in order to criminalize the practice. Flag-burning emerged in the Vietnam War era as a popular form of protest against the U.S. invasion, and was criminalized in many states until a Supreme Court ruling voided those state bans.

“You should get a one-year jail sentence if you do anything to desecrate the American flag,” Trump in 2024 during a “Fox & Friends” interview.

“Now, people will say, ‘Oh, it’s unconstitutional.’ Those are stupid people. Those are stupid people that say that,” he said at the time. “We have to work in Congress to get a one-year jail sentence. When they’re allowed to stomp on the flag and put lighter fluid on the flag and set it afire, when you’re allowed to do that — you get a one-year jail sentence, and you’ll never see it again.”

The actual order will not carry any force of law. It is merely a directive to the Justice Department ordering prosecutors to set up a court battle over the issue by identifying protesters engaging in the act for future criminal actions.

But given Trump’s unprecedented erosion of the Justice Department’s independence from politics and the White House, it’s likely that Attorney General Pam Bondi will follow up Trump’s order with concrete action.

The directive comes as Donald Trump’s ordered federal takeover of Washington D.C. continues, albeit with some key caveats.

The Trump administration has now handed back control of the Metropolitan Police Department, D.C.’s main police force, to city officials after initially announcing that it would be federalized.

Agents from multiple national bureaus and organizations continue to patrol the streets of the capital, and National Guard troops from D.C. and several states around the country have been called in to aid the president’s crimefighting campaign. Troops have largely stuck to milling around high-tourist areas, and are not engaged in law enforcement actions. Members of U.S. Park Police have engaged in an unprecedented wave of homeless encampment sweeps across the District of Columbia since Trump’s takeover began, and immigration enforcement actions have been ramped up across the city.

The takeover is extremely unpopular with D.C. residents, and has led to protests as well as angry confrontations between residents and groups of law enforcement officials conducting checkpoints and other enforcement actions.