Donald Trump's campaign was warned about not taking photographs before an altercation at Arlington National Cemetery to honour service members, a defense official said.

Donald Trump’s campaign was warned about not taking photographs before an altercation at Arlington National Cemetery during a wreath-laying ceremony earlier this week to honour service members killed in the Afghanistan War withdrawal, a defense official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

[…]

“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,” the cemetery officials’ statement said. “Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants. We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed.”

    • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      To add to what the guy below said:

      According to Arlington National Cemetery’s media policy, filming and photographing is not authorized “for partisan, political or fundraising purposes, in accordance with the Hatch Act.”

    • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      0·
      3 months ago

      You don’t even have to open the article to get your answer, the relevant portion of text has been transcribed into the body of the post. Scroll up and read for fucks sake.

      • 18-24-61-B-17-17-4@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        I understand that pictures and videos were taken for political purposes and that is illegal. Was there a further incident though? Did a fallen service member’s family confront Trump’s team or something?

        • jballs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          From what I’ve read, it sounds like it was cemetery staff saying “hey you can’t film here”.

          • confused_code_monkey@lemm.ee
            0·
            3 months ago

            Furthermore Trump’s staffers verbally assaulted and physically pushed at least one cemetery official when that official tried to bar access into the photography-restricted area.

            • TommySalami@lemmy.world
              0·
              3 months ago

              Then called her (I think NPR said it was a her) crazy afterwards, implying she was having a mental health episode. Then they’ve gone on to release photos, showing they were blatantly violating federal law after being clearly told they were doing so. Not to mentioned , they allegedly assaulted an Arlington cemetery staff member in furtherance of that violation (I know you mentioned this but I feel it’s worth repeating, there should be multiple people charged for this).

    • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      From the link:

      It came a day after NPR reported, citing a source with knowledge of the incident, that two Trump campaign staff members “verbally abused and pushed” aside a cemetery official who tried to stop them from filming and photographing in Section 60, the burial site for military personnel killed while fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

      Cemetery staff tried to stop them from filming/taking photographs in a restricted section of cemetery and and Trump’s people physically and verbally abused them for doing their job.

      Even worse, in my opinion, is Trump spokesman Steven Cheung’s response.

      “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,” he said.

      How dare that peon try to enforce the rules? Didn’t they know that Trump is beyond all mortal regulations? Clearly the peon was mentally ill at the time.

      • confused_code_monkey@lemm.ee
        0·
        3 months ago

        clearly suffering from a mental health episode

        It’s horrifying that Trump’s campaign manager would casually make this significant health claim on an official that dared to do his job rather than bow to Trump’s will. Just horrifying.

    • fluxion@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      And of course he personally attacked the person who had the audacity to enforce the very reasonable rules protecting these soldiers’ graves from being used for bullshit political stunts by insurrectionist traitors who do not value freedom and democracy and the principles these soldiers dedicated their lives to.

        • fluxion@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          I meant personally as in targeting a specific individual with insults over doing their jobs and following procedures, but you’re right that it was a staffer (not that I don’t think Trump would do similar)

    • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      0·
      3 months ago

      Oh and Vance, a fucking GWOT vet (although without a CAR we know he didn’t actually get up to any hoodrat shit) himself, defended him.

      • jballs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        Not only did he defend Trump, but he also told Harris to “go to hell” as part of that defense.

        Trump’s running mate JD Vance was asked about the incident Wednesday at a campaign event in Erie, Pennsylvania, and said that “apparently somebody at Arlington Cemetery, some staff member, had a little disagreement with somebody” and “the media has turned this into a national news story.”

        He instead tried to focus on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, calling Harris “disgraceful” for not firing anyone for the deaths of service members in the terror attack. “She can go to hell,” Vance said.

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
          0·
          3 months ago

          As if it’s the VPs job to do hiring and firing in the military or executive branch. What an idiotic redirection.

          Also ignoring that the investigation of the IED bombing found there was nothing that could have been done to prevent it, as is often the case in these low level terror attacks.

          Both pieces of shit. I’m glad this shitty pandering is backfiring.