The woman given the boot for her one-fingered salute

WHEN the shot of her flipping the bird to the President went viral, Juli Briskman ’fessed up to her bosses. Now she’s lawyered up.

Juli Briskman flips the bird at Donald Trump’s motorcade. The move cost Ms Briskman her job. Picture: AFP/Brendan Smialowski

THE woman sacked for giving United States President Donald Trump the finger is planning to sue her former employer.

Juli Briskman, the government contractor who became an online sensation when a shot of her cycling past Mr Trump’s motorcade to give him the one-fingered salute, was dismissed at the start of this month.

Angered by the President’s stance on migrants, health care and a range of other issues, and thinking “he’s at the damn golf course again”, Ms Briskman pedalled hard while flipping the bird at his motorcade.

A White House photographer captured her cycling past the US President’s car as it left the Trump National Golf Club in Northern Virginia on Saturday, October 28.

When she returned to work at Akima LLC on Monday, the marketing and communications executive fessed up to her HR department because the picture, which she was by then using as her profile picture on Twitter and Facebook, was going viral.

Ms Briskman claims HR told her initially it would not be a problem.

But on the Tuesday, she was given the boot, with her employer saying she’d violated their social media policy.

“They walked me to my desk and then out the building. I was even told I could not get photos of my children from my computer before they bleached it,” Ms Briskman said.

“It was like I had embezzled a couple of million company dollars.”

Now she has told The Independent her dismissal — just 24 hours after she “fessed up” — made her feel “they didn’t properly think” her sacking through.

“The HR person said: ‘Well, you are allowed to ride your bike and talk to the media, just do not do it on company time.’ But she ended up telling her boss, the director of HR, and the VP of corporate development, who then talked to the CEO of Akima.

“Apparently he just said I was not being respectful of company policy.”

“I hope he gets impeached,” says Briskman of Trump. Picture: AFP

This was despite the fact she didn’t list her employer on either of her social media accounts, Ms Briskman said.

When she was first fired, she complained that a male colleague had not been sacked for posting offensive comments using his Facebook profile, which featured Akima LLC as his cover photo, including calling someone a “f***ing Libtard a**hole”.

“How is that any less ‘obscene’ than me flipping off the president?” Ms Briskman said. “How is that fair?”

Now she’s considering taking legal action to get that question answered.

“All options are on the table at this point. I am speaking with a number of different lawyers, potentially suing for discrimination or potentially my First Amendment rights being violated,” Ms Briskman said. “A number of attorneys are excited by the case.”

When she was first fired, the single mum of two teenagers was terrified about how she would make ends meet but she is still paying the mortgage and staying afloat thanks to savings and a Go Fund Me campaign — established for her — that has raised more than $A170,000.

“There are three reasons why people are contributing,” Ms Briskman said. “The first is they hate Trump, the second is they think my First Amendment rights have been violated, the third is that my employer discriminated against me.”

While she’s had plenty of support for flipping the bird to the President, she’s also copped abuse from Trump supporters via social media, email, voicemail and even snail mail.

“I’ve had about eight abusive letters full of swear words, with people saying I look like an elephant on that bike and that I’m a defective offspring,” Ms Briskman said.

“People have even copied the middle finger and sent it to me.”

As for that one-fingered salute, she said the message behind it was more important than the gesture itself.

“When the motorcade went past I remembered all that frustration I have had with President Trump and his administration and it came out through my middle finger,” she said.

“I hope eventually he gets the message or he gets impeached.”