The Trump administration threatened to pull a protest permit over a pair of anti-Trump signs near the U.S. Capitol, a lawsuit alleges.
“Officials are making up charges as a weapon against the First Amendment to shut down speech they don’t like,” Anita Carey, an organizer with the group that brought the suit, Accountability NOW USA, said in a statement. “We Americans deserve our Constitutional rights, and we are prepared to defend them.”
The controversy began in the wake of February allegations that the Justice Department was withholding Trump-related documents from the public Epstein files.
In response to these reports, the group began displaying a pair of new signs linking Trump and MAGA to Epstein’s crimes.
President Trump has strongly denied any wrongdoing associated with Epstein, and the administration insists it has released all the materials it is legally required to about the late sex trafficker.
After displaying the signs as part of a permitted demonstration, the group got an email on April 14 from a National Park Service agent, claiming the anti-Trump message on the signs was “not protected by the first amendment and is therefore prohibited and a violation of law,” according to the suit.
After inquiring about the email, Accountability NOW USA got a message from Dr. Kevin Griess, superintendent of Washington’s National Mall and Memorial Parks, the complaint claims.
In the email, Griess allegedly wrote that the material had been “evaluated under all appropriate standards and tests” and determined to be unlawfully obscene.
“Because obscenity is unlawful on federal land, we must ask that the material be removed,” Griess wrote, warning that the Parks Service could take more drastic steps to “ensure compliance,” the suit claims.
Combined, the messages suggest there is a “realistic and imminent threat” the group’s protest permits “will be summarily revoked or its signs removed,” the suit alleges.
The activists, represented by the Washington chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, argue the messages are a threat to their free speech rights.
“No colorable argument can be made that they are legally obscene,” the ACLU argues in the suit. “Political criticism of the President is not obscene simply because it references alleged sexual misconduct.”
Obscenity is not protected under the First Amendment, but there is a high legal bar to proving something is obscene and ordering it to be removed from the public eye. Only a narrow set of material that’s devoid of intellectual merit, patently offensive, and largely prurient qualifies as genuine obscenity in the eyes of the courts.
The lawsuit names Griess and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum as defendants. It seeks a declaration that the signs are not obscene and are protected by the First Amendment.
“As a reminder, we are approaching America’s 250th and we have visitors of all ages coming to our nation’s capital,” the Interior Department said in a statement to The Independent. “This language is not protected under the First Amendment.”
The Independent has contacted the White House and National Mall for comment.
The activist complaint alleges the threat to their signs is part of a larger pattern of protest repression by the Trump administration.
It points to actions including the September dismantling of a long-running peace vigil near the White House and the removal of a satirical statute of Trump and Epstein holding hands on the National Mall, even though its creators had a permit to display it.
(The administration said it removed the vigil as part of a homeless encampment clearance effort, while the statue was allegedly “not compliant” with its original permit.)
Displays in parks have emerged as a flashpoint in the second Trump administration, with the White House pushing to scrap historical displays and other signage tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion-related topics.
Critics allege the effort has often resulted in the removal of non-ideological historical materials about tricky topics in U.S. history, including racism and slavery.
