In recent days, Donald Trump has offered a highly distorted account of the confrontation at Arlington National Cemetery over his aides’ use of the site as a backdrop for a slickly produced campaign video. What really happened, he has said, is that families of the fallen simply invited him to appear. There was no real confrontation, he claims, and Democrats simply made up the incident, in which his aides shoved aside an Arlington official who tried to ensure that Trump and his group followed the law and respected the prohibition against politicizing hallowed ground that many Americans revere.
Trump’s account is nonsense from top to bottom. But in what may be this scandal’s most disturbing turn yet, it’s increasingly looking like Trump’s campaign could get away with it—because, Democrats say, the Army is not being forthcoming about basic details of the incident.
The Army has yet to provide Democrats in Congress with its internal incident report detailing the confrontation, even though they have been demanding it for almost two weeks, a congressional aide familiar with the situation tells me. Democrats have also demanded a blow-by-blow account of what exactly was communicated to the Trump campaign before the incident. Trump aides were warned against carrying out prohibited activities, and a full accounting would show the degree to which they knew in advance that their filming would violate specific laws and regulations. That has not been forthcoming either, the aide says.
Three senior House Democrats—Representatives Adam Smith, Jamie Raskin, and Mark Takano—are set to release a new statement Tuesday that increases the pressure on the Army for more information. The lawmakers—ranking Democrats on the Armed Services, Oversight, and Veterans’ Affairs committees, respectively—call on the Army to immediately provide answers to their questions, and they urge the Army to offer a full accounting to relevant law enforcement officials who would decide if a criminal assault took place.
“The alleged assault of an Arlington staff member by Trump campaign staff requires a strong official response,” the three Democrats said in the statement, which was provided to The New Republic. It adds that the “failure to properly investigate this egregious incident in a timely manner and hold violators accountable undermines the integrity and honor of Arlington National Cemetery” and erodes “norms requiring nonpartisanship in the military.”
In a measure of Democrats’ frustration, the three lawmakers also say: “We urge the U.S. Army to immediately provide information regarding how the event was coordinated.” This is important: It’s a reference to the Army’s recent statement noting vaguely that participants in the August 26 incident were “made aware” of laws, regulations, and policies that “clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.”
That Army statement raises further questions about who on the Trump campaign initially contacted Arlington about Trump’s planned visit, what exactly Trump campaign officials were told in advance, what they said in response, and what particular laws and regulations the Army believes were violated. Democrats sought detailed information on all of that, the congressional aide tells me, but were informed by Army officials that this must wait until its own investigation of the incident concludes. As the aide points out, this seems to contradict the Army’s own statement, which also said the Army “considers the matter closed.”
“I hope the Army will quickly release all relevant information and admonish Trump that this kind of conduct can lead to his being banned from the cemetery,” Raskin told me, describing the Trump campaign’s conduct as “especially egregious.”
Plainly, not providing the information could end up suppressing important evidence of just how contemptuous Trump campaign officials were of laws, rules, and norms involving the section of Arlington where many casualties of Iraq and Afghanistan are buried, which carries deep significance for many Americans.
The two staffers who provoked the confrontation are deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and advance team member Michel Picard, NPR recently reported. Both men “verbally abused” the Arlington official for simply trying to “enforce the rules,” NPR said, adding that Picard then “pushed her out of the way.” She considered pursuing charges but ultimately declined, reportedly fearing retribution from Trump supporters.
“As with any alleged assault, this incident should be investigated by the appropriate law enforcement authorities and should be subject to an independent charging decision,” the three House Democrats said in their statement. “We urge the Army to cooperate fully with the charging authority, including providing any information they have on the alleged incident to that authority.” It’s unclear if any such investigation is happening or whether the Army provided that information.
All this also raises questions about what Democrats are doing about it in the Senate, where they enjoy a majority. Democratic senators could presumably bring more pressure to bear on the Army to be forthcoming and could subpoena information if needed (which House Democrats in the minority cannot do). Recently, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, a member of the Armed Services Committee, called for the Army to provide the incident report, but Senate Democrats have generally been quiet about what efforts they are making now, if any. A strong statement from House Democrats should prod them to get more active.
The bigger matter at stake here is the fate of basic accountability in the Trump era. Plainly, the Army fears that being too forthcoming with information about the incident will open it up to charges of being “political.” But Trump and his movement have spent years attacking our institutions precisely in order to spook them into refraining from holding them accountable for unscrupulous or even illegal conduct, lest they appear politicized.
So what’s at issue in this scandal yet again is whether Trump and MAGA will be rewarded for their open contempt for laws, rules, and norms—and their vile bullying of public officials and institutions alike—by yet another retreat from accountability.
“He will not be held as accountable as he should be if the Army doesn’t make a formal finding that he violated the rules and regulations, particularly since he so clearly did,” Smith told me. A failure by the Army here, Smith added, would suggest that in the face of relentless Trumpian assaults on our institutions, “to some degree we’ve conceded.” As Smith concluded: “We should never get tired of trying to hold him accountable.”
