Democratic lawmakers with the Home Oversight Committee despatched a letter Friday to the U.S. Military requesting a report into an altercation earlier this week involving an Arlington Nationwide Cemetery worker and Trump workers who introduced marketing campaign photographers to the cemetery.
Within the letter, the committee’s rating member, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, wrote to Military Secretary Christine Wormuth that he was “hopeful you’ll be able to present the Committee with a full account” of Monday’s incident.
Former President Donald Trump visited the cemetery to participate in a wreath-laying ceremony on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to commemorate three years because the 2021 Kabul suicide bombing that killed 13 service members through the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The confrontation occurred when Trump’s marketing campaign introduced its personal photographers to Part 60 of the cemetery, the place veterans of the latest Iraq and Afghanistan wars are buried.
Whereas the precise particulars stay unclear, an Military spokesperson mentioned in an announcement to CBS Information Thursday that the worker was “abruptly pushed apart,” calling it “unlucky” that the “worker and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked.”
The cemetery mentioned in an announcement this week that “federal regulation prohibits political marketing campaign or election-related actions inside Military Nationwide Navy Cemeteries, to incorporate photographers, content material creators or some other individuals attending for functions, or in direct help of a partisan political candidate’s marketing campaign.”
In his letter, Raskin wrote that “it seems that the Trump marketing campaign refused to abide by Arlington Nationwide Cemetery’s absolute prohibition,” and cited Arlington’s tips prohibiting “filming for partisan, political, or fundraising functions” underneath the Hatch Act.
Protection officers beforehand advised CBS Information that some workers with the Trump marketing campaign had been unprofessional and had been aggressive each verbally and bodily towards the cemetery official.
“ANC conducts almost 3,000 such public ceremonies a yr with out incident,” the Military spokesperson mentioned within the assertion. “Individuals within the August twenty sixth ceremony and the next Part 60 go to had been made conscious of federal legal guidelines, Military rules and DoD insurance policies, which clearly prohibit political actions on cemetery grounds.”
The Trump marketing campaign, in the meantime, has insisted that it was given categorical permission by Gold Star households to deliver “marketing campaign designated media.” Messages reviewed by CBS Information verified this declare.
A Trump marketing campaign spokesperson additionally mentioned that “there was no bodily altercation as described and we’re ready to launch footage if such defamatory claims are made.”
Raskin additionally cited an apology issued by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who attended the ceremony with Trump and posted a number of images of the occasion to his official social media accounts.
“This was not a marketing campaign occasion and was by no means meant for use by the marketing campaign,” Cox wrote in a social media publish Wednesday. “It didn’t undergo the right channels and shouldn’t have been despatched. My marketing campaign can be sending out an apology.”
Raskin known as on the Military to supply an “incident report” and “a briefing,” and requested that Wormuth reply by Sept. 9.
Scott MacFarlane,
Kathryn Watson,
Eleanor Watson,
and
contributed to this report.