The Virginia woman who gave President Trump’s motorcade a one-finger salute as it was leaving his Virginia golf course — a gesture that immediately went viral — said she was fired from her job at a company that does work with the government.
Juli Briskman told the Huffington Post on Saturday that after photos of her flipping off the presidential caravan while riding a bike Oct. 28 started appearing online and in news reports, she thought she should alert her employer, Akima LLC, a government contractor.
When she returned to work that Monday, Oct. 30, she informed the company’s human resources department.
Briskman, a 50-year-old mother of two, was fired the next day.
“They said, ‘We’re separating from you,’” Briskman said. “Basically, you cannot have ‘lewd’ or ‘obscene’ things in your social media. So they were calling flipping him off ‘obscene.’”
Briskman, who worked in marketing and communications for the company for a little more than six months, said she pointed out to the executives that the incident didn’t happen when she was on the clock and that the social media posts didn’t mention her employer.
At a meeting Tuesday, her bosses told her she violated the company’s media policy by posting the photo as her profile picture on Twitter and Facebook.
They also said the photo could end up hurting the business because it was a government contractor.
While Akima dismissed her, she said, the company only reprimanded a male employee who posted lewd comments on his Facebook page that used the company as his cover photo.
She said the guy called somebody a “f—ing Libtard a–hole” on Facebook.
“How is that any less ‘obscene’ than me flipping off the president?” she told the Huffington Post. “How is that fair?”
Akima didn’t returned requests for comment.
Briskman, a Democrat, said as the motorcade began to pass her as it returned to the White House from the Trump National Golf Course in Sterling, Va., it was a gut reaction to flip him off.
“He was passing by and my blood just started to boil,” she said. “I’m thinking, DACA recipients are getting kicked out,” she said. “He pulled ads for open enrollment in ObamaCare. Only one-third of Puerto Rico has power. I’m thinking, he’s at the damn golf course again.”
Despite being fired, she said, she has no regrets.
“In some ways, I’m doing better than ever,” she said. “I’m angry about where our country is right now. I am appalled. This was an opportunity for me to say something.”
