A flag linked to far-right groups and used by the January 6 rioters was raised at another government agency in Washington DC, according to a report.
The controversial flag, featuring the image of a pine tree and the words “Appeal to Heaven,” was recently spotted outside the office of a top U.S. Department of Education official. USA TODAY reported.
The “Appeal to Heaven” flag, also known as the “Pine Tree flag,” dates back to the Revolutionary War, but in recent years has been associated with Christian nationalist groups as well as the Proud Boys and certain neo-Nazi groups, according to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
It was not immediately clear how long the flag had hung outside the D.C. office of Murray Bessette, the deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, the report said.
The flag was also spotted outside the Small Business Administration in June. Its revival comes at a time when many are concerned about the separation of church and state — and as the president has vowed to protect prayer in public schools.
The president of the national union for education department employees, Rachel Gittleman, said USA today that the agency “has no place for symbols worn by insurgents.”
“Since January, hardworking U.S. Department of Education officials have been subjected to threats, intimidation and continued demoralization,” she said. “Now they are being asked to work in an environment where a senior leader prominently displays an offensive flag – a flag that, regardless of its origins in the American Revolution, has come to represent intolerance, hatred and extremism.”
In response, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Education said: “As usual, union members are more concerned about imagined grievances and foolish political fights than about the terrible test scores of our nation’s students.”
The Department of Education did not immediately return a request for comment The independent.
In June, the Small Business Administration flew the “An Appeal to Heaven” flag at a ceremony, but it was only flown for about a day, according to a report in WIRED.
The flag has been at the center of controversy before, including in the summer of 2024 when reports emerged that it had been flown outside Judge Samuel Alito’s New Jersey vacation home several times in 2023.
Around the same time, The New York Times reported that another flagpole on the judge’s front lawn at a Virginia property flew an upside-down American flag in late 2020 and early 2021, in the days after Joe Biden took office.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has occasionally displayed the flag outside his office on Capitol Hill.
The ‘Appeal To Heaven’ flag and the inverted American flag were both embraced by supporters of Donald Trump’s ‘Stop The Steal’ campaign, who falsely claimed Biden’s victory was fraudulent.
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