Trump flag in front of post office triggers investigation

After a “Donald Trump 2024” flag flew on a New York Post flagpole on Memorial Day, an investigation was launched, according to a local media report.

According to the Times Union According to an Albany, New York, newspaper, the Trump flag was hung “for a brief time” among the U.S. flag and POW/MIA flags at the Delmar post office before being removed later Monday morning.

Albany television station CBS 6 reported that local police “have reportedly been in contact with the postal inspector’s office while the investigation is ongoing.”

Newsweek sent an email to the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General and the Bethlehem Police Department on Monday evening seeking further details. This article will be updated with any statements provided.

The flag was reportedly spotted by participants in the Memorial Day Parade in nearby Bethlehem, New York. Photos of the Trump flag flying in front of the post office were shared with the Times Union from an unnamed source.

The Hatch Act, a federal law passed in 1939, “restricts certain political activities of federal employees and some employees of states, the District of Washington, and local agencies working in connection with federally funded programs,” according to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

The goals of the law are to “ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan manner, protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and ensure that federal employees are promoted based on their merit and not their political affiliation.”

Mark Lawrence, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, told the Times Union, “The flag was not placed there by postal workers and the agency had it removed as soon as they learned it was there.”

Lawrence also told the newspaper that he did not know whether the Postal Service was trying to find out who planted the flag.

Meanwhile, about 150 miles south of the Delmar Post Office in Manhattan, Trump’s criminal trial is coming to an end this week after more than four weeks of testimony.

The former president and likely Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election is facing 34 charges stemming from a payment he made to porn star Stormy Daniels to trick him into keeping quiet about an affair she allegedly had with him. Prosecutors allege Trump falsified business records to conceal his involvement in the payment. The payment was made during the 2016 presidential election by Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen.

The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges and denies having an affair with Daniels.

Closing arguments in the case will begin Tuesday morning, and a 12-member jury will begin deliberations on Wednesday.