Woman Fired From Job for Flipping Off President Given Staggering Sum Thanks to GoFundMe

A woman who flipped off President Donald Trump’s motorcade in October has received widespread support in a GoFundMe campaign that has now raised more than $100,000.

Juli Briskman of Sterling, Virginia, was riding her bicycle on Oct. 29 as Trump’s motorcade passed her. She raised her middle finger in salute. The moment was captured by a photographer and soon went viral, and Briskman used the photo on her own Facebook and Twitter accounts.

There was a catch. She was employed by a government contractor, Akima, that did not want employees to post “obscene” images on their social media pages. As a result, she was fired.

After her firing became public, Rob Mello of Hudson, Massachusetts, created a GoFundMe page for Briskman.

As of Thursday, the page had surpassed its goal of $100,000 thanks to pledges from more than 4,900 donors. Rosie O’Donnell, a long-time nemesis of Trump, was among those donating. She pledged $1,000.

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“Juli Briskman is an inspiration to us all,” Mello wrote on the page when it started. “This week we learned that she was fired from her employer for exercising her First Amendment rights. You can show your support by donating here.”

Briskman has shown no remorse for her action.

“It was a spur-of-the-moment decision,” she said on MSNBC, according to The Washington Free Beacon. “Lots of things were going through my mind about how disappointed I am with this administration. I didn’t really have any other way to express my opinion to Mr. Trump, and so the finger was what I had at the time.”

“I don’t think that he respects the office, so I don’t respect the office,” she added. “Luckily, I don’t live in a country where I must respect him or there are severe consequences for me.”

Briskman became a celebrity for her act, and appeared on Megyn Kelly’s NBC show, where she said flipping off Trump “felt great.”

She has also said she does not want her old job back because Akima does not share her values. Instead, the registered Democrat hopes to get a job with a group she supports, like Planned Parenthood.

During her segment on Briskman, Kelly said Akima did not have a comment. However, she read an ethics statement from the company’s website.

“Akima expects its employees, officers and directors to exercise good judgment and maintain high ethical standards in all activities which affect Akima. Every Akima employee is held to these standards,” the statement said.

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Briskman claimed that standard was not applied evenly, because another employee of the construction management company was allowed to simply clean up his page after foul language was used on it.

“I really wasn’t gonna talk about this until I remembered the fellow that I actually flagged to the company that he had written very obscene things in someone else’s conversation on Facebook,” she said. “He did not get fired. He was allowed to clean up his Facebook page.”

“They clearly treated me differently. It was not equal application of their social media policy.”

https://www.westernjournalism.com/woman-fired-job-flipping-off-president-given-staggering-sum-thanks-gofundme/