{"id":757,"date":"2026-07-01T20:14:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=757"},"modified":"2026-07-01T20:14:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:14:53","slug":"federal-judge-says-anti-trump-groups-86-47-flag-is-protected-political-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=757","title":{"rendered":"Federal Judge Says Anti-Trump Group\u2019s \u201c86-47\u201d Flag Is Protected Political Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<!-- begin partial\/series-card --><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p><i><span>Truthout is a vital news source and a living history of political struggle. If you think our work is valuable, <\/span><\/i><i><span>support us with a donation<\/span><\/i><i><span> of any size.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=755\">As Heat Wave Spreads Across the US, Data Centers Strain Electrical Grids<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>A federal judge has placed a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the National Park Service (NPS), restricting the agency from barring an organization opposed to President Donald Trump from displaying an \u201c86-47\u201d flag and other signage during their protests.<\/p>\n<p>Accountability NOW USA, a group that advocates for Trump to be impeached and removed from the White House, has been protesting the president for 24 hours per day, seven days per week, since December. Earlier this year, they started using a flag that had the numbers \u201c86-47\u201d on it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c86\u201d is commonly understood to mean \u201cget rid of\u201d or \u201cthrow out,\u201d especially in the restaurant world. Some interpret the number to mean \u201ckill,\u201d though the organization has said that they are not using the number in that manner. \u201c47\u201d refers to Trump, as he is the 47th president of the United States. <\/p>\n<p>In addition to the flag, Accountability NOW demonstrators have held up signs alleging that Trump is a sexual abuser of children, citing unverified documents released from the Epstein files.<\/p>\n<p>NPS and the Secret Service demanded the signs come down in April, calling them \u201cunprotected obscenity,\u201d and threatening to \u201cimpose and enforce permit conditions\u201d to bar Accountability NOW from protesting at the George Meade statue in Washington, D.C., which is on NPS-managed land.<\/p>\n<p>The organization filed a request for a TRO on those demands shortly after, while their lawsuit demanding their signage not be restricted continues.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss granted the TRO request, stating that NPS could not restrict the group\u2019s signage and flag use, as it would restrict their free speech rights protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>Moss, recognizing the multiple meanings behind \u201c86,\u201d noted that the government failed to prove the organizers were threatening the president\u2019s life, and that NPS claims did not meet the standard allowing for restrictions of speech under a doctrine called \u201ctrue threat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe uncontroverted evidence demonstrates that Plaintiff [Accountability NOW] lacked any subjective intent to threaten or to harm the President and that it merely sought to use the flag to communicate that \u2018Trump shouldn\u2019t be in office,&#8217;\u201d Moss recognized, adding:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The question whether \u20188647\u2019 constitutes a true threat cannot be resolved in the abstract, without consideration of context, and, here, the relevant context makes clear that no reasonable observer could have viewed Plaintiff\u2019s display of the flag as a threat to the President\u2019s life or physical safety.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=753\">Lawsuit Against Reparations Program in Illinois Can\u2019t Quash Movement\u2019s Momentum<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The signs and the flag \u201cmight outrage or offend some, but they do not, by any measure, cross the line from protected political speech to unprotected obscenity,\u201d Moss said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe principal difficulty with the government\u2019s argument is that the overall and overwhelming message the Plaintiff has conveyed, and hopes to continue to convey, is that President Trump should be removed from office by constitutional means,\u201d Moss wrote in his opinion granting the TRO, concluding that the \u201c86-47\u201d flag \u201cis protected speech.<\/p>\n<p>Accountability NOW members celebrated the ruling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe at Accountability NOW are pleased that the Court has upheld our First Amendment right to display signs addressing the President\u2019s alleged sex crimes, as well as our peaceful 8647 flags and artwork, at our 24\/7 demonstration,\u201d said organizer Anita Carey. \u201cWe will continue to exercise our constitutional right to lawfully and peacefully call for the President\u2019s impeachment, conviction, and removal from office.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs the nation celebrates 250 years of independence, this ruling underscores the enduring importance of public dissent in our democracy,\u201d Carey added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAgain and again, the National Park Service has tried to shut down this speech simply because it is critical of Donald Trump,\u201d said Aditi Shah, staff attorney at ACLU-D.C., who represents the organization in the case. \u201cThe definitions of \u2018obscenity\u2019 and \u2018true threat\u2019 are narrow and for good reason; the government should not have wide latitude to shut down critical speech using \u2018obscenity\u2019 and purported \u2018threats\u2019 as covers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The case has notable parallels to charges the Department of Justice (DOJ) brought against former FBI director James Comey earlier this year. <\/p>\n<p>In 2025, Comey shared an image of seashells on social media arranged to make up the same numbers \u2014 \u201c86 47\u201d \u2014 before deleting the post when users responded by explaining the number \u201c86\u201d can sometimes mean \u201ckill.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors in that case will likely have to overcome the same \u201ctrue threat\u201d standard for Comey that NPS failed to demonstrate with Accountability NOW.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnder First Amendment jurisprudence, a threat may be prosecuted only if it amounts to a \u2018true\u2019 threat, which the Supreme Court has defined as a serious expression conveying that a speaker means to commit an act of unlawful violence,\u201d <em>MS NOW <\/em>legal analyst Barbara McQuade said at the time charges were brought against Comey.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=751\">Trump Aide Floats Barring Pregnant Visitors After Birthright Citizenship Ruling<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The judge concluded that the organization intended the numbers to mean Trump \u201cshould be removed from office.\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Federal Judge Says Anti-Trump Group\u2019s \u201c86-47\u201d Flag Is Protected Political Speech - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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