September 10, 2019 | revcom.us

 

Charges Dropped Against Joey Johnson for July 4th Flag-Burning in front of White House

Flagburner was Gregory “Joey” Johnson, Defendant in Landmark Supreme Court, Texas v Johnson (1989)

Johnson said July 4th Flag Burning was an "Imagine a World Without America" Protest

 

10 September 2019
For immediate release 
Gregory "Joey" Johnson available for interviews 
Contact: Larry Everest 202 556 3906 
gregoryjoeyjohnson.global

The District of Columbia Attorney General today filed papers dismissing all charges against Gregory “Joey” Johnson. Johnson was arrested after he burned two American flags on July 4, 2019 in front of the White House in opposition to Trump, his “Salute to America”, and everything America stands for historically and today. A video captured the dramatic protest.

Johnson was represented in the case by attorney Mark Goldstone. Goldstone and the ACLU of the District of Columbia sent a letter to the Office of the Attorney General insisting that Johnson’s flag burning was constitutionally protected speech and demanded that charges against him be dropped.

Johnson, joined by members of the Revolution Club and the Get Organized for an Actual Revolution National Tour was part of a July 4th protest “Imagine a World without America! A Call to Act!”

Johnson stated that he should never have been brutally arrested, thrown to the ground and held overnight for exercising a constitutional right he established in the 1989 Supreme Court case (Texas v. Johnson). Trump has repeatedly called for outlawing flag burning and re-tweeted a Breitbart meme of Johnson's flag burning outside the White House on July 4th.

Just weeks before his arrest in D.C., in June 2019, Johnson won a $225,000 legal settlement from the City of Cleveland stemming from his 2016 arrest for burning an American flag at the Republican Convention as Trump was being nominated. (Cleveland Is Paying $225,000 to a Man Who Burned the American Flag, The New York Times, June 15)

Johnson stated, “As Trump posed with tanks and fighter jet flyovers for his Nuremberg style rally, I burned the American flag in protest of his whole fascist agenda. America was never great.”

“When I see that flag burn, I’m not only thinking of the children who are starved and bombed by the U.S. in Yemen, or the children who are torn from their parents along the U.S.-Mexico border,” he said to the Washington Post “This is the workings of a system . . . built on the plunder of literally billions of people around the world.”  Joey Johnson is an active member of the Revolution Club and a follower of the revolutionary communist leader Bob Avakian. For more go to revcom.us.

Media coverage / background:

Revcom.us “JULY 4 2019 IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT AMERICA: A Call to Act”

5 min VIDEO: Joey Johnson on why he still burns the flag, how selling “Stars and Stripes” newspaper as an “Army brat” youth opened his eyes, and whether he considers himself an American.

Washington Examiner, June 24, “’Burn that rag!’ Activists to desecrate the flag at Trump July Fourth rally”

New York Times, June 15, “Cleveland Is Paying $225,000 to a Man Who Burned the American Flag”