Military investigations into the incident at Trump's controversial Arlington Cemetery are ongoing, an Army report says

CNN
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An investigation into the incident at Arlington National Cemetery, in which an employee was reportedly pushed by a member of former President Donald Trump's campaign team, is ongoing.

An Army spokesman said in August that the service “considers this matter closed.”

The Army released on Friday a heavily redacted police report that the employee filed in August.

“Law enforcement's investigation into the incident is ongoing and we are therefore unable to provide further information at this time,” an Army news release containing the report said Friday. According to the released report, the incident is still being investigated by the Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall Police Department's Investigations Division, although the employee “did not wish to press charges.”

The report is heavily redacted and offers little clarity or detail about what happened during the incident, although the Army has previously said that the Arlington employee in question was “abruptly pushed aside” by a member of the Trump team. The report was filed against a “simple assault offense,” the report said, although the actual details of the incident were redacted, aside from the allegation that appeared to say the person was pushed with both hands by another person.

The report was released in response to a court order issued earlier this week in response to a lawsuit by American Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog organization that advocates for the release of government records.

“We are pleased that American Oversight was able to get the report into the hands of the American public so they can see for themselves that federal law enforcement’s investigation into the August incident at Arlington National Cemetery is ongoing,” Chioma said Chukwu, the interim director of American Oversight, said Friday.

Trump and his campaign team had been in Arlington to attend a ceremony marking the three-year anniversary of the Abbey Gate bombing, which killed 13 US soldiers in Afghanistan during the chaotic US withdrawal. Trump attended at the invitation of family members of some of the fallen troops.

A video of the visit was later posted on TikTok by the Trump campaign. It shows the former president visiting gravesites throughout the cemetery, with audio recordings of Trump criticizing the “disaster” of the Biden administration's withdrawal.

Then-Trump spokesman Steven Cheung denied claims of a physical altercation, saying the staffer “decided to physically block members of President Trump's team during a very solemn ceremony.” Cheung suggested that Trump's team had video to support the claim, although no video of the incident was released.

Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita called the unnamed individual “despicable” and said they were “spreading these lies” and “dishonoring the men and women of our armed forces.” Meanwhile, the visit was criticized by others, including veterans organizations, as an inappropriate politicization of one of the U.S. military's most sacred burial sites.

The U.S. Army issued a rare rebuke in a statement in the days after the incident, defending the Arlington employee and saying Trump and his staff had been “made aware of federal law, Army regulations and DoD policies that discourage political activity at the cemetery clearly prohibit “reasons,” including in Section 60, which is largely reserved for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“This incident was unfortunate and it is also unfortunate that the ANC worker and her professionalism were unfairly attacked,” the army spokesman said at the time. “ANC is a national shrine to the armed forces’ honored dead and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure that public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect that the nation’s fallen deserve.”

The Trump campaign pointed to a statement from the Gold Star families he accompanied, saying they gave his videographer and photographer permission to be there. However, some images from the visit showed the graves of other US soldiers whose families did not grant permission.

In a photo shared online, the grave of Army Master Sgt. Andrew Marckesano — a Special Forces soldier and Silver Star recipient who died by suicide — was introduced next to the grave of Marine Staff Sgt. Darin Hoover, one of the 13 killed at Abbey Gate.

Marckesano's sister Michele said in a statement that while they supported the families of the 13 fallen “in their search for answers” about the Afghanistan withdrawal, the Trump campaign “failed to follow the rules” of Section 60.

“According to our conversation with Arlington National Cemetery, the Trump campaign staff did not follow the rules set forth for this visit to SSGT Hoover's Section 60 gravesite, which is right next to my brother's grave,” Michele said Marckesano in a statement in August. “We hope that those who visit this sacred site understand that these were real people who sacrificed for our freedom and that they will be honored and respected accordingly.”