Trump 2020 Flag Can Fly High In Wright County: Appeals Court

WRIGHT COUNTY, MN — A Wright County man has won the right to once again fly his massive flag in support of former President Donald Trump from the top of a 150-foot crane.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday reversed a ruling by the Buffalo City Council, which fined Montrose resident Jay Johnson last year for flying a Trump flag that measured 30 feet by 50 feet from a crane at a storage site for his construction business, Johnsonville LLC.

The flag at the center of the court battle read “TRUMP 2020 Keep America Great,” but Johnson has flown other flags, including one that read, “TRUMP/JFK JR.,” with the popular QAnon phrase “Where we go one we go all!” written underneath their names, the Star Tribune reported.

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The Buffalo City Council said Johnson’s flag violated the city’s sign ordinance with its size and because Johnson did not have a permit to fly the flag, according to court documents.

The appeals court said Monday that Buffalo’s size restrictions on noncommercial signs — no bigger than 8 square feet in agriculture areas — “creates a content-based regulation of speech” and ordered the city to reverse its ruling and the fines levied against Johnson.

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Johnson’s lawyer, Aaron Dean, said holiday signs in Buffalo can be much larger than non-commercial signs and argued Johnson’s flag should be regulated the same way. The appeals court agreed.

“The city has not presented any reasons why a holiday sign, by the nature of its content, promotes aesthetics and ensures safety at any size, while a non-commercial sign that does not contain holiday-related messages may not exceed eight square feet in an agricultural zone,” the appeals court wrote in its ruling.

Dean told the Star Tribune that Johnson was initially fined $600 for his Trump flag, and he incurs a $200 fine each day for replacing the crane with a taller flag pole to fly the American flag.

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Johnson plans to put up a new Trump flag within the next few weeks, the Star Tribune reports.

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