TRUMP WADES INTO FLAG BURNER DEBATE

PRESIDENT CLAIMS HE MADE FLAG BURNING A CRIME PUNISHABLE BY A YEAR IN PRISON

- STORY: CHARLIE SAVAGE / NYT

US Attorney General Pam Bondi looks at US President Donald Trump during a roundtable on antifa at the White House on Oct 8.

President Donald Trump has renewed his attacks on flag burning, bragging that he “took the freedom of speech away” and made it a crime punishable by a year in prison to set fire to an American flag.

Mr Trump made that claim on Wednesday during apparently off-the-cuff remarks at a White House-hosted “roundtable” on antifa, the loosely defined left-wing antifascist movement, with Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials, as well as various right-wing influencers who have made videos of themselves confronting left-wing protesters of Trump administration policies.

In his opening remarks at the discussion, Mr Trump invoked an incident in which one of the influencers, Nick Sortor, was arrested last week in Portland, Oregon, after a scuffle with protesters outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

A video posted on social media appears to show Sortor stopping a protester from burning a flag before the confrontation, and he brought the partly burned remnants to the roundtable.