Army releases report on Trump campaign incident at Arlington National Cemetery

The Army has released a police report into an August altercation at Arlington National Cemetery involving two campaign staffers for former President Donald Trump and a cemetery employee.

Reportwhich has been almost entirely redacted, was released Friday following a lawsuit filed by government watchdog American Oversight.

Incident, first reported by NPRwhich came in August after Trump attended a wreath-laying ceremony on the third anniversary of the deadly Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan that killed 13 US service members. Then Trump visited Chapter 60where American victims from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried, at the invitation of some family members and friends of the fallen soldiers.

NPR previously identified the two employees According to a source familiar with the incident, the incident involved deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and Michelle Picard, a member of Trump’s front-line team.

Arlington National Cemetery rules, communicated to the campaign in advance of the visit, prohibit photography or videography except by an official Arlington photographer.

As the cemetery worker tried to enforce the rules, she was verbally abused by two Trump campaign operatives, according to a source familiar with the incident. Picard pushed her out of the way, two Pentagon officials said.

The report, published on Friday, is dated August 29. It is heavily redacted, with names redacted, and does not say whether police interviewed Trump staffers.

The report includes words that appear to describe what happened, reading in part: “with both (redacted) hands while trying to pass.” It is also noted that the employee did not press charges.

After NPR reported the altercation, Trump campaign spokesman Stephen Cheng said they were “ready to release footage” of the incident and attacked the Arlington employee as someone who was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.”

No video footage of the altercation has been released, but the Trump campaign later released the Section 60 video on social media, and Trump himself insisted the incident was “fictional story”.