Trump team pushes back on reported confrontation at Arlington Cemetery
by Brett Samuels - 08/28/24 10:02 AM ET
The Trump campaign is blaming an Arlington National Cemetery official for a reported confrontation during the former president’s visit there Monday to mark the anniversary of the Kabul airport attack that killed 13 U.S. service members amid the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The incident, first reported by NPR, stemmed from the presence of a photographer with former President Trump’s camp and broader concerns about election-related activities in a military cemetery.
Arlington National Cemetery confirmed an incident took place and a report was filed but provided no other details.
“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” the cemetery said in a statement. “Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants. We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed.”
NPR, citing an anonymous source, reported a cemetery official tried to stop Trump staffers from filming and photographing in an area of the cemetery where soldiers recently killed in Afghanistan and Iraq are buried, known as Section 60. The source told NPR that Trump staffers pushed the official aside when they tried to stop campaign officials from entering the area.
Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s communications director, denied there was any physical altercation “as described.”
“The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony,” Cheung said in a statement.
Cheung shared a screenshot on social media of a message that he said was confirmation that Trump was allowed to have “an official photographer and/or videographer outside of the main media pool.”
In a separate statement, senior Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita, who served in the Marines, claimed an individual tried to “physically prevent” Trump’s team from accompanying him Monday.
“Whoever this individual is spreading these lies are dishonoring the men and women of our armed forces, and they are disrespecting everyone who paid the price for defending our country,” LaCivita said.
more
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4851481-trump-arlington-cemetery-incident/
