A federal judge has permanently blocked the Trump administration from using its permit power to shut down an anti-Trump protest, ruling that the government tried to suppress core political speech and offered no lawful basis for it.
Accountability NOW, a group of volunteers, has held a permitted 24-hour vigil on National Park Service land in Washington for months. It displays two signs accusing Trump of raping minors and a flag reading “8647” (a number the administration cast as a coded threat against the 47th president). After an alleged assassination attempt against Trump in late May, the Park Service ordered such flags taken down and warned that replacing one would violate the group's permit. When an officer relayed that threat, the group amended its lawsuit against Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and a National Mall superintendent that same day.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss, an Obama appointee in Washington, ruled for the protesters three times: a temporary restraining order in early June, an expanded order mid-month, and now a permanent injunction on summary judgment. In a 52-page opinion, Moss rejected the government's argument that the signs were “obscene” and that the flag was a “true threat,” finding the materials “do not constitute a 'true threat' or criminal 'incitement' to violence” and that the signs “might outrage or offend some, but they do not, by any measure, cross the line from protected political speech to unprotected obscenity.”
Moss opened the ruling by underscoring the stakes: “Freedom of speech is a bedrock constitutional right... Political speech in particular is the lifeblood of American democracy.” He added that despite the opinion's length, “that does not mean that this is a hard case. It is not. Plaintiff's signs and flag fall well within the heartland of protected First Amendment speech, and Defendants offer no plausible basis for suppressing Plaintiff's core, political speech.”