Army veteran facing charges says he had every right to burn American flag: ‘Oh yes, we can.’

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

WASHINGTON — It was hours after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to protect the American flag from “desecration,” and Jan Carey said he knew what he had to do.

According to court documents, Carey, 54, a combat veteran, set a flag down on bricks in a park across from the White House and announced with a bullhorn that he was an Army veteran about to burn a flag to protest Trump’s order he believes violates free speech rights. Then he lit the small flag on fire.

“That was my way of pushing back,” Carey told The Baltimore Sun on Monday following a U.S. District Court hearing in his case. “He (Trump) said, ‘You can’t burn the flag.’ I said, ‘Oh yes, we can,’ and I burned the flag in Lafayette Square in front of the White House.”