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The Woman Who Flipped Off Trump's Motorcade Just Got Fired For It

by Joseph D. Lyons
Drew Angerer/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Flipping off the president's motorcade turned one Northern Virginia woman into a viral sensation. Once she posted something on her personal Facebook, however, the firm she was working for gave her the boot. Juli Briskman says she was fired for her middle finger to President Trump. The company allegedly told Briskman that she violated their social media policies by making it her profile picture on various social media sites.

In interviews with HuffPost and The Washington Post, Briskman relates exactly what she says happened to her: The 50-year-old had been working for Akima LLC, a government contractor in Virginia, as a marketing executive. When the photo was taken of her flipping off the president, she says she went to the company's HR department to let them know. Bustle has reached out to Akima for comment, but has not heard back as of the time of publication.

A day later, Briskman says that Akima told her that she had violated their employee handbook's social media rules. "They said, ‘We’re separating from you,‘” said Briskman told The Huffington Post. “Basically, you cannot have ‘lewd’ or ‘obscene’ things in your social media. So they were calling flipping him off ‘obscene.’”

Briskman seems shocked that this happened. "I wasn’t even at work when I did that,” Briskman told The Washington Post. “But they told me I violated the code of conduct policy."

Within the employee handbook that Briskman gave to The Post: "Covered Social Media Activity that contains discriminatory, obscene malicious or threatening content, is knowingly false, create [sic] a hostile work environment, or similar inappropriate or unlawful conduct will not be tolerated and will be subject to discipline up to an [sic] including termination of employment," it reads.

She also rehashed in the interviews what she was thinking that morning last week when Trump was driving from his golf course in Sterling, Virginia. "Here’s what was going through my head that day: ‘Really? You’re golfing again?’” she told The Post.

Then came the moment of action. "He was passing by and my blood just started to boil,” she told Huffington Post. “I’m thinking, DACA recipients are getting kicked out. 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 ... I flipped off the motorcade a number of times."

Briskman currently has the photo as her Twitter profile and banner. She told The Post that she's not much of an activist; she used to work for the government in the diplomatics corps, traveling around the world. "I think I gave money for clean water once," she told the paper.

But that doesn't mean she's regretful about speaking out against the president. "I’d do it again," she told the paper. In speaking with Huffington Post, Briskman was also largely positive. "In some ways, I’m doing better than ever,” she told the website. “I’m angry about where our country is right now. I am appalled. This was an opportunity for me to say something.”