Trump, Arlington National Cemetery, and the Rule of Law
A micro-portrait of the aspiring authoritarian.
1. Bullies
Yesterday NPR broke a story about Donald Trump’s Monday visit to Arlington National Cemetery.
It seems that the Trump campaign decided to film in a section of the cemetery that’s is off-limits for video, which is against the law. A worker at the cemetery tried to stop them from breaking the law. The campaign did not take kindly to this:
A source with knowledge of the incident said the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent U.S. casualties are buried. The source said Arlington officials had made clear that only cemetery staff members would be authorized to take photographs or film in the area, known as Section 60.
When the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump campaign staff from entering Section 60, campaign staff verbally abused and pushed the official aside, according to the source.
When NPR contacted the Trump campaign, it responded by hinting that the NPR story was “defamatory” because the incident never happened and also that the person who tried to stop them from breaking the law was “mentally ill.”1
In a statement to NPR, Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign's spokesman, strongly rejected the notion of a physical altercation, adding: "We are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made.
"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 the statement.
The Trump campaign declined to make that footage immediately available.
In a statement to NPR, Arlington National Cemetery said it "can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed."
"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," according to the statement. "Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants."
Two serious points about this story and then one not-totally-serious question.