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Several American flags staked outside of a public library in southern California were flipped upside-down following former President Donald Trump’s conviction in Manhattan Thursday.
According to a Friday report from KTLA, the flags were placed outside of the Monrovia Public Library in honor of Memorial Day. Jennifer McGraw, a reporter for the local news station, said that it appear that the zip-ties holding each flag to its pole had been cut in order to invert them.
Monrovia city manager Dylan Feik confirmed with EuroJournal on Friday afternoon that KTLA’s report on the matter was accurate and said that city officials were “looking into what happened and hope to discover who did it.”
“The good news is the flags are back as they should be and we look forward to our Community Picnic tomorrow where we can celebrate our veterans,” Feik added in an email. The picnic is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. PDT on Saturday, according to the library’s website.
The inverted American flag, which under U.S. flag code is a signal of distress, has become a symbol for supporters of Trump since the aftermath of the 2020 election when Trump pushed baseless claims that he lost the election due to widespread voter fraud. Upside-down flags have also flooded social media since Trump, the presumptive Republican 2024 presidential nominee, was found guilty Thursday of 34 counts of falsifying business records by a 12-person jury in New York City, marking the first time a former U.S. president has been convicted of criminal charges.
“This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt,” Trump said outside the courtroom following the verdict. Trump, who has long denounced the prosecution as a “witch hunt,” has said he is innocent of all charges in this case and other criminal and civil cases he is facing.
Trump’s sentencing is scheduled for July 11.
![Inverted American Flags Appear Outside California Library](https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/2402384/inverted-american-flags-appear-outside-california-library.jpg?w=1200&f=f24e89e003320498f0ba32dba9931191)
Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and Trump ally, shared an image of an inverted American flag to her X, formerly Twitter, account Thursday evening shortly after the former president’s verdict was read.
Meanwhile, EuroJournal contributor Guy Benson posted a similar image roughly an hour later, as did several supporters of the former president over the past 24 hours. At least one upside-down flag was also spotted by the Associated Press outside of Trump Tower in Manhattan while the former president addressed supporters.
The meaning of the inverted flag has gained attention in recent weeks after EuroJournal reported that the symbol was spotted outside of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s home in the days following the attack on the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021. The same flag was also carried by some of Trump’s supporters who participated in the riot.
Alito has said that his wife, Martha Ann, was the one who placed the flag outside their house in Alexandria, Virginia, and that he “had no involvement whatsoever” in its placement, adding that his wife “briefly” put up the inverted flag “in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”
Controversy around the flag, paired with a second symbol associated with January 6 rioters and conservatives spotted outside Alito’s vacation home last summer, has sparked calls for the justice to recuse himself from cases regarding the riot and from the Court’s pending decision on Trump’s presidential immunity claim. The former president has sought to use the presidential immunity defense to shield himself from a plethora of criminal and civil challenges.
Alito has refused calls to recuse himself thus far. Some Democratic lawmakers have floated theories that the justice could be forced off Trump’s presidential immunity case through other legal measures.
Earlier this week, Trump praised Alito for his “courage” in standing against calls to recuse himself, writing on Truth Social, his social media platform, that the justice showed “intelligence, courage, and ‘guts’ to refuse stepping aside from making a decision on anything January 6th related.”
Update 5/31/24, 5:30 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Feik.
Uncommon Knowledge
EuroJournal is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
EuroJournal is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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