Defending Army Veteran Jay Carey Against Trump Administration’s Prosecution for Flag Burning Protest Near White House

Background

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) and its Center for Protest Law & Litigation are defending U.S. Army veteran and free-speech advocate Jay Carey who is being subjected to prosecution in federal court by the Trump Administration for burning an American flag in Lafayette Park in front of the White House. On August 25, 2025, Mr. Carey, a former sergeant first class who was deployed to Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, burned an American flag immediately following President Trump’s signing an Executive Order directing the Attorney General to prioritize “the enforcement to the fullest extent possible of our Nation’s criminal and civil laws against acts of American Flag desecration.” Flag burning is a constitutionally protected form of expression.

We have filed a Motion to Dismiss the charges leveled against him and are fighting those charges on multiple grounds.

The Bondi Justice Department is attempting to use wilderness regulations, meant for places like Yellowstone and inapplicable to expressive conduct in Lafayette Park, against Mr. Carey’s First Amendment–protected protest in Lafayette Park in front of the White House.

We are challenging this as a vindictive prosecution. Mr. Carey is being targeted for his First Amendment protected expression, with which the President disagrees. We’ve obtained body worn camera footage from the scene recording that while Mr. Carey was being detained in Lafayette Park, command officials were conferring with the U.S. Attorney’s Office to find out what they could charge him with and discussing Trump’s Executive Order. The officer listed as the U.S Park police supervisor on the arrest report is also heard on video stating, “So the President just today signed an executive order that says we’re arresting him. We got that going for us. The executive order is signed.”

Just three months before the flag-burning Executive Order and Mr. Carey’s arrest, the President issued a different Executive Order stating that it is the policy of the United States that criminal prosecution based on regulatory violations is “disfavored.”By the government’s own policy, this criminal prosecution alleging regulatory violations should not be happening, further demonstrating that this is a vindictive prosecution and that the government’s assertions of “presumption of regularity” in prosecutorial determinations are refuted.

Mr. Carey has said: “This was a direct protest about an illegal order that President Trump tried to put in place. I did not do this just for myself, but for everyone who believes in the Constitution and the protections for all that it provides.”

Mr. Carey is represented by Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-founder and Executive Director of the PCJF and its project, the Center for Protest Law & Litigation, and Nick Place, staff attorney with the PCJF and CPLL and Marine veteran.