The U.S. Army has come to the defense of an employee at Arlington National Cemetery who has been the subject of criticism due to a controversy involving former President Donald Trump.
Trump appeared at the cemetery on Monday to honor the third anniversary of the 13 U.S. service members killed in the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing as the war in Afghanistan was days from ending when the employee got into a now-disputed confrontation with Trump’s staff. Trump and the Gold Star families were informed about the policies and regulations seemingly around the ban on political activities in the cemetery.
The cemetery employee sought to ensure Trump and his staff were adhering to the federal laws, Army regulations, and Defense Department policies prohibiting political activities on cemetery grounds and was “abruptly pushed aside,” according to a statement from an Army spokesperson on Thursday.
The employee then avoided further disruption and reported the incident to the Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall Police Department but decided not to press charges. The Army considers “this matter closed,” its statement said.
“This incident was unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the ANC employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked,” the Army’s statement continued. “ANC is a national shrine to the honored dead of the Armed Forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect the nation’s fallen deserve.”
Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s communications director, claims that the unnamed staffer was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode,” adding, “The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises, and for whatever reason, an unnamed individual … decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony.”
The Trump campaign released a six-minute video on Monday featuring short interviews with several Gold Star family members criticizing President Joe Biden’s response to the bombing and his treatment of them in the time since then. Biden released a written statement that morning, on the anniversary, honoring their loved ones’ sacrifices.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the Biden administration for the 2021 Afghan withdrawal and the Abbey Gate bombing, which killed about 170 Afghans in addition to the 13 U.S. troops. Many of the families have expressed anger toward Biden for the death of their loved ones and have connected with a sympathetic Trump, leading some to speak at the Republican National Convention last month.
The families of some of them have said since Monday’s incident that they invited Trump to join them for the memorial.
Trump and his presidential running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have brought up the chaotic withdrawal on the campaign trail in recent weeks as the anniversary of the withdrawal approaches.
“We’re gonna talk about a story out of those 13 brave innocent Americans who lost their lives. It’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can go to hell,” Vance told a crowd during a campaign stop in Erie, Pennsylvania, earlier this week.
Trump, while president, also wanted to end U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan and agreed to a deal with the Taliban, cutting out the Afghan government in 2020 to do so, if specific conditions were met, which started the process that Biden would ultimately complete. One of the few foreign policy decisions Trump and Biden shared was a desire to end the war.
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