Not gonna take it anymore
Army veteran Jay Carey is daring Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, to charge him with flag-burning.
Carey lives just south of here in Hendersonville, NC. He was in Lafayette Park across from the White House on Wednesday burning an American flag. (His wife told me on Saturday that he was headed to D.C. but didn’t hint at what he had planned. Trump did not issue his executive order on flag-burning until Monday.)
“I know that I’m living in Trump’s head right now and I love it. He is fuming and I did it right in front of his house,” Carey told Fox 5 DC:
WASHINGTON – FOX 5 had a chance to speak with the man detained by federal authorities after burning an American flag outside the White House on Monday, defying a presidential order mandating that those who engage in such demonstrations will be sentenced to a year behind bars.
The backstory:
Outside of Union Station on Tuesday, Jay Carey, the man who set that American flag on fire, was present to participate in the around-the-clock protest by military veterans opposed to the D.C. takeover.
He’s continuing to protest that new flag-burning executive order signed by President Donald Trump and while speaking to FOX 5, said he’s ready to challenge any charges brought by the administration.
But police only charged Carey with setting a fire on federal property and damaging park property, then released him.
“It wasn’t a matter of disrespecting the flag. I’m a veteran. I fought under that flag. With that flag, for that flag. It’s a matter of protesting against what the president was putting out: an executive order because he feels he can do anything that he wants and that’s just not the case,” Carey said
“When we have a Constitution and hundreds of years of Supreme Court jurisprudence saying that birthright citizenship is a thing, you can’t stroke that away with a pen. Saying the First Amendment is a thing, you can’t stroke that away with a pen, but that’s what he’s doing,” said Russell Ellis, who goes by the username jolly_good_ginger on Instagram. “And so we’ve just reached a point—veterans and non-veterans alike—have reached a point where we’re not going to take it any longer.”
Carey says he’s prepared to take on the Trump administration, adding that he already has a highly experienced lawyer who has offered to take on his case.
“What I’m waiting on is our illustrious D.C. prosecutor to bring up charges, at the behest of our president, and say you need to spend a year in jail. Need to spend a year in jail. Not 10 years. Not 10 months. One year and it’s ridiculous. And I want that challenge. I welcome that challenge. I already have the lawyer that defended that gentleman in 1989 about burning a flag, she’s already stepped up to be my lawyer,” Carey said.
Police removed Carey from a town hall event held by Rep. Chuck Edwards (R, NC-11) back in March. He jumped up and started cursing that Edwards didn’t “give a f@ck about me.”
Guy’s got guts.
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