By Hal Brown, MSW, Retired psychotherapist
While the headlines about William Barr are about him trying to fire SDNY U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman this comparatively minor story jumped out at me in this Politico article:
While some of the cases are unquestionably grave, others have raised questions about whether the federal government is stretching its authority to satisfy President Donald Trump.
The subtitle applies equally to the Berman case and numerous other things Barr has done to spit polish the shoes of the president, or chose your own less polite euphemism
This is what caught my attention (and prompted me to make the image) when I read the bolded portion below:
“While some of the cases are unquestionably grave, others seem less so, and have raised questions about whether the federal government is stretching its authority to satisfy President Donald Trump’s desire to see a forceful federal intervention in the protests.
Two cases, for instance, involve individuals facing federal felony charges for breaking police car windows, relying on federal statutes not often applied in such instances. In another case, federal authorities charged a man with possession of a Molotov cocktail, arguing that because he had used an imported bottle of Patron Citronge Pineapple Tequila to make the incendiary device, the case fell under the federal government’s regulation of foreign commerce.”
If William Barr really wants to use federal statutes to prosecute perpetrators, I suggest he look into the law against defacing the flag. I have no doubt that if anti-Trump or Black Lives Matter protestors burned a flag at a rally he’d want to have them arrested.
18 U.S. Code § 700.Desecration of the flag of the United States; penalties
(a)
(1)
Whoever knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any flag of the United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.
Certainly putting an image of Donald Trump on a giant American flag should be considered both defacing and physically defiling the flag.