US Army confirms Arlington Cemetery worker was pushed aside by Trump team | Donald Trump

U.S. military officials on Thursday sharply rebuked Donald Trump's campaign, confirming that an Arlington National Cemetery worker was roughly pushed aside during an altercation with members of the former president's staff.

The statement is the strongest official criticism yet of Trump's controversial visit, during which he gave a thumbs-up over the graves for a photo opportunity and two of his aides allegedly physically assaulted the military official. It comes as outrage continues to mount among veterans and families of some of the service members buried there.

Pressure on the Republican presidential candidate's campaign was heightened by the military's revelation that Trump's team had been explicitly informed in advance by a Defense Department official that taking photos and videos at the cemetery violated federal law.

The campaign ignored the warning and filmed it anyway, sparking a confrontation during Monday’s visit that one Democrat called “abhorrent and shameful.” And on Thursday, Trump’s campaign continued to aggressively insult the unnamed cemetery worker involved in the altercation, who was shoved while trying to enforce the rules, after learning she had declined to press charges out of fear of retaliation from Trump supporters.

Participants in the August 26 ceremony and subsequent Section 60 tour were briefed on federal laws, Army regulations and [defense department] ANC rules clearly prohibit any political activity in cemeteries. An ANC employee who tried to enforce these rules was abruptly removed, the army statement said.

This incident is regrettable, and it is equally regrettable that the ANC employee and her professionalism have been unfairly attacked. The ANC is a national shrine to the fallen of the armed forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure that public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect that the nation's dead deserve.

Steven Cheung, the president’s former communications director, said the employee suffered from what he called Trump derangement syndrome. A day earlier, he had said the person was mentally ill, while Chris LaCivita, Trump’s senior adviser, called the employee despicable.

The Trump campaign's escalation of rhetoric was widely seen as an attempt to distract from growing condemnation of the candidates' efforts to grab political capital by staging a photo op at a Virginia cemetery on the third anniversary of a suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. service members.

The Arlington employee was reportedly shoved and verbally assaulted by two members of Trump's campaign after he tried to prevent them from entering the cemetery's heavily restricted Section 60, where recent American casualties, mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan, are buried.

Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities at military cemeteries, Arlington officials said in a statement, noting that a report of the incident has been filed with military authorities.

But Trump, who has blamed Joe Biden and his November election opponent Kamala Harris for the chaotic 2021 U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, posted footage on social media Wednesday of himself laying a wreath and speaking with the family of one of the deceased veterans at his grave.

The fallout from the episode intensified Thursday after the family of a fallen Green Beret Special Forces soldier reportedly said images of his adjacent grave were taken without their permission, and politicians and other military families rallied to condemn the episode.

According to our conversation with Arlington National Cemetery, members of the Trump campaign did not follow the rules put in place for this visit to Master Sgt. [Darin] Hoover's grave in Section 60, which is right next to my brother's grave, Michele Marckesano, sister of Staff Sgt. Andrew Marckesano, who died in 2020, told The New York Times.

We hope that those who visit this sacred site understand that these are real people who sacrificed for our freedom and are honored and respected accordingly.

Khizr Khan, father of 27-year-old Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004 and buried in Section 60, questioned why Trump made the visit.

Khan, who has previously criticized the former president for calling deceased veterans suckers and losers, told The Daily Beast: “He’s proven his disrespect. Someone needs to ask him: You’ve shown this disrespect repeatedly and yet again, here you go.”

Gerry Connolly, a Democratic congressman from Virginia, said: “It is sad but entirely predictable that Donald Trump would desecrate this sacred place and put campaign politics ahead of honoring our heroes.”

“His behavior and that of his campaign are abhorrent and shameful. I urge Arlington Cemetery to make public what happened so that the American people can ensure that the ground where our nation's heroes are buried is not desecrated by a man who has no concept of service and sacrifice,” he added in a statement.

Cheung said Wednesday that the campaign had footage of the Arlington altercation that it was ready to release, but as of Thursday morning it had not yet done so.

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, tried to defend his running mate Wednesday at a campaign stop in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Harris, he said during a speech criticizing Biden and the vice presidents' handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal, can go to hell, wrongly insisting that Trump had not filmed a TV ad at a burial site.

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