Mary Trump, Donald Trump‘s estranged niece, said the U.S. Army should investigate and “bring charges if necessary” against the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign staff over an incident at Arlington National Cemetery.
On August 26, the former president attended a memorial at the cemetery in Virginia, where his staff allegedly got into an altercation with a cemetery staff member who was trying to prevent them from taking video footage at a grave site.
Donald Trump’s campaign later released a video on TikTok using footage from the memorial, which was held to commemorate the deaths of 13 U.S. service members who were killed in a bombing outside Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
A frequent critic of her uncle, Mary Trump wrote on her blog, the Good in Us, that he and his staff were “desecrating the hallowed ground of Arlington.”
She said, “The Democrats need [to] hold hearings and demand that the Trump campaign hand over its videos that allegedly show what happened during their altercation with cemetery staff; the Army, which manages Arlington National Cemetery, needs to investigate and bring charges if necessary.”
Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., with an inset of Mary Trump, Donald Trump’s estranged niece. She said the U.S. Army should investigate and charge, if necessary, her uncle’s campaign staff over an incident at the cemetery.
John Bazemore, Mike Pesoli/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Military officials confirmed that making a campaign video at Arlington is against the law. They said the cemetery staff member declined to press charges because she feared retaliation from the former president’s supporters.
Mary Trump said her uncle had doubled down and refused to apologize on the grounds that he was asked to take photographs at a grave site by family members of a slain service member.
“Donald, as he often does, compounded his original transgression by failing to take responsibility for it, lying about it, and then blaming the incident on the Gold Star families who invited him there in the first place,” she wrote.
Newsweek has contacted Donald Trump’s campaign for comment via email.
Steven Cheung, the former president’s campaign spokesperson, previously told Newsweek the staff member “tried to physically block” his team, but he denied it was a physical altercation. Cheung said he was willing to release footage of the incident, but when Newsweek asked to see it, he did not respond.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump denied that there was an altercation between his campaign team and an Arlington staff member, writing in a Truth Social post: “There was no conflict or ‘fighting’ at Arlington National Cemetery last week. It was a made up story by Comrade Kamala and her misinformation squad.”
Despite facing mounting criticism from the U.S. Army, veterans groups, and former members of his own administration, the former president has continued to defend his actions, saying the families of the fallen service members had requested the photographs.
“I want to thank the families of our Great Warriors who have been lost to us for the way they came together as one, and thanked me for attending, at their request, the Celebration of their wonderful family members who, because of the Incompetence of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, are no longer with us,” he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. “Thank you for saying you wanted me to stand with you at Arlington National Ceremony, and take pictures, that it was your request, not mine, but it was my Great Honor to do so. I WILL NEVER FORGET!”
