President Donald Trump will crack down on so-called “cashless bail” and flag burning in three executive orders on Monday.
One of the cashless bail executive orders will cover Washington, D.C., while the other will cover the country more broadly, the White House told the Washington Examiner on Monday.
A White House official confirmed that under the two cashless bail executive orders, expected to be signed Monday morning, the federal government would withhold approval, funding, and services if jurisdictions with cashless bail do not repeal their policies, in addition to any “actions” Attorney General Pam Bondi “identifies as necessary and appropriate because of the emergency conditions.”
“The Order directs the Attorney General to submit a list of States and local jurisdictions with cashless bail policies,” the White House wrote in a fact sheet obtained by the Washington Examiner. “The Order instructs the Administration to identify Federal funds currently provided to cashless bail jurisdictions that may be suspended or terminated.”
Under a cashless bail legal and justice system, a person arrested for a crime does not need to pay money to be released from police custody before their respective trial.
The D.C. cashless bail executive order also “tasks the relevant law enforcement agencies and officials that are members of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force to work to ensure that arrestees in the District of Columbia are held in Federal custody to the fullest extent permissible under applicable law, and to pursue Federal charges and pretrial detention for such arrestees whenever possible,” according to the second White House fact sheet.
Trump’s cashless bail executive orders coincide with his federal takeover of Washington, D.C.’s law enforcement amid plans to deploy the National Guard to other Democratic-run cities around the country in response to crime and homelessness, including Chicago and Baltimore.
The third executive order, regarding flag burning, directs “the Attorney General to vigorously prosecute those who violate our laws in ways that involve desecrating the flag, and to pursue litigation to clarify the scope of the First Amendment in this area,” the White House added.
“It also instructs the Attorney General to refer flag desecration cases that violate state or local laws to appropriate state or local authorities,” the White House wrote in a third fact sheet. “Finally, the order directs the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security and the Attorney General to deny, prohibit, terminate, or revoke visas, residence permits, or naturalization proceedings, and other immigration benefits, or seek removal from the United States, wherever there has been an appropriate determination that flag desecration by foreign nationals permits the exercise of those remedies under applicable law.”
The flag burning executive order is complicated for Bondi because, while working in Florida’s attorney general’s office, she defended a decision to drop charges for flag desecration and called the state’s law unconstitutional.
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“The U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that this type of statute is unconstitutional,” Bondi said in 2007. ‘This defendant’s conduct is protected under the First Amendment.’”
In its flag burning fact sheet, the White House underscored that “The Supreme Court has never held that flag desecration conducted in a manner that is likely to incite imminent lawless action or serve as a form of ‘fighting words’ is constitutionally protected.”