Man jailed for posting Trump meme wins $835,000 settlement

Larry Bushart, a retired Tennessee cop who was jailed for 37 days for posting a Trump meme on Facebook, won an $835,000 settlement Wednesday after suing the county and sheriff that he said jailed him in order to censor him.

In a press release, Bushart’s legal team at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) confirmed that Bushart agreed to dismiss his lawsuit in exchange for the “substantial settlement.”

“I am pleased my First Amendment rights have been vindicated,” Bushart said. “The people’s freedom to participate in civil discourse is crucial to a healthy democracy. I am looking forward to moving on and spending time with my family.”

The settlement will help ensure that Bushart and his wife have a comfortable retirement. That was threatened when Bushart was jailed, as he lost his post-retirement job. But the settlement doesn’t make up for other losses. The grandfather missed the birth of his grandchild while he was stuck behind bars for more than a month, as he couldn’t afford to pay his eye-popping $2 million bond.

“No one should be hauled off to jail in the dark of night over a harmless meme just because the authorities disagree with its message,” Adam Steinbaugh, FIRE senior attorney, said. “We’re pleased that Larry has been compensated for this injustice, but local law enforcement never should have forced him to endure this ordeal in the first place.”

Cops came for Bushart after he posted a meme that he neither created nor altered on Facebook. The meme accurately quoted Donald Trump as saying, “we have to get over it,” following a school shooting at Perry High School in Iowa.

Bushart posted the meme on a Facebook thread that was promoting a vigil for Charlie Kirk in Perry County in Tennessee after the right-wing influencer was assassinated.

A county sheriff, Nick Weems, saw the meme and was seemingly offended. He took advantage of the fact that the school referenced in the meme, Perry High School in Iowa, could possibly be confused with his area high school, Perry County High School. And he issued a warrant for Bushart’s arrest “based on the absurd notion that the meme could be interpreted as a threat” of a shooting at a high school in his county, FIRE said.

Seemingly, Weems hoped the threat of arrest would pressure Bushart into removing the post, but Bushart refused to be censored.

Video from the arrest shows that Bushart told the arresting officer he never made such a threat, and some cops at the jail seemed similarly confused about the basis of his arrest. In one exchange caught on footage reviewed by The Intercept, Bushart even shared a laugh with an officer over how silly his arrest seemed to be:

“Just to clarify, this is what they charged you with—Threatening Mass Violence at a School,” a Perry County jail officer told Bushart.

“At a school?” Bushart asked.

“I ain’t got a clue,” the officer responded, laughing. “I just gotta do what I have to do.”

“I’ve been in Facebook jail, but now I’m really in it,” Bushart said, joining him in laughing.

Weems later admitted that “he knew at the time of the arrest that Larry’s Facebook post was a pre-existing meme that referred to an actual shooting that took place in a different state, over 500 miles away,” FIRE said. But he arrested Bushart anyway, violating Bushart’s “constitutional rights in retaliation for his protected speech,” FIRE said.

FIRE noted that Bushart is one of 600 people that Reuters found were punished for making controversial online statements about Kirk’s death, following a government-backed campaign targeting political speech. Bushart’s win shows that the First Amendment can stand up to censorship attempts, FIRE staff attorney Cary Davis suggested.

“It’s in times of turmoil and heightened tensions that our national commitment to free speech is tested the most,” Davis said. “When government officials fail that test, the Constitution exists to hold them accountable. Our hope is that Larry’s settlement sends a message to law enforcement across the country: Respect the First Amendment today, or be prepared to pay the price tomorrow.”