WASHINGTON — An Army veteran from North Carolina set an American flag ablaze outside the White House Monday evening, hours after President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning flag burning .

Flag burning is protected free speech under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court struck down the Flag Protection Act, which outlawed flag burning, in a decision in 1990, saying that it sought to suppress free speech.

But Monday morning, Trump ordered the Department of Justice to charge anyone who burns an American flag with inciting a riot, because he claimed the act “incites riots at levels we’ve never seen before.” He said the penalty should be a mandatory one year in jail.

Jay Carey, a 54-year-old veteran from Arden, North Carolina, took to Lafayette Park in front of the White House

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