Arlington National Cemetery on Tuesday confirmed an incident took place when former President Donald Trump visited there Monday to commemorate the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate attacks in Afghanistan.
"We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed," the statement read.
“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,” said the cemetery in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. “Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants.”
Trump participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Monday, marking the third anniversary of the deaths of 13 U.S. service members in an attack by the Islamic State outside the Kabul airport in Afghanistan. More than 150 Afghans were also killed. Parents of fallen service members have expressed anger at President Joe Biden's administration for a lack of answers surrounding the attack.
After the ceremony, Trump headed to Section 60 of the cemetery, where some service members killed in Afghanistan and Iraq are buried and recording is typically heavily restricted.
NPR first reported Tuesday that two Trump campaign staffers had a confrontation with a cemetery official who tried to prevent them from filming.
Trump communications director Steven Cheung denied some of the details of the report and said the campaign was willing to release footage to support its claim.
“There was no physical altercation as described and we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made,” Cheung said in a statement. “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 followed up in a statement on X, saying Trump was allowed to have a photographer there.
Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita posted a video on x that showed Trump laying flowers at a gravesite.
In a statement, he said a “despicable individual” physically prevented Trump’s team from accompanying him to the event.
“For a despicable individual to physically prevent President Trump’s team from accompanying him to this solemn event is a disgrace and does not deserve to represent the hollowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery,” LaCivita said. "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 claimed that Trump was at Section 60 at the invitation of Abbey Gate Gold Star families “to honor their loved ones who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country.”
In an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, LaCivita claimed that a "nameless bureaucrat at Arlington whose job it is to preserve the dignity of the cemetery is doing the complete opposite in trying to make what was a very solemn and respectful event into something it was not."
Trump generated controversy this month when said this month that the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a civilian award, was "better" than the top military award, the Medal of Honor, because those who receive the latter are often dead or injured.
Trump has previously faced scrutiny over a 2020 report in The Atlantic, which former White House chief of staff John Kelly later confirmed, that he made disparaging remarks about fallen soldiers, calling them "suckers" and "losers." Trump has denied the allegation.
