Trump Claims He's A Victim Of ‘Very Bad People’ After Dustup At Arlington Cemetery

After his campaign’s staffers “abruptly pushed aside” an official at Arlington National Cemetery and ignored rules prohibiting political activity on its grounds, President Donald Trump is pushing back, saying he was the victim of a smear campaign from “bad people” out of Washington.

“Those incredible parents … asked me to go yesterday to Arlington, and I did,” Trump said at a rally Thursday in Michigan. (He was actually at the cemetery on Monday.)

“And while I was there, I was there for a long time. … While we were there, they said: ‘Could you take pictures over the grave of my son, my sister, my brother, would you take pictures with, us sir?’ I said, ‘Absolutely.’ I did. Then I said farewell, I said goodbye.”

NPR first reported details of an “altercation” between Trump’s aides and the unnamed cemetery worker on Monday. Trump was there to hold a wreath-laying ceremony to mark the third anniversary of an attack on an airport in Kabul that killed 13 American service members, amid the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Arlington, a 639-acre national cemetery in Virginia that holds many American military casualties, has strict restrictions on political campaigning or election-related activities. Officials have reiterated that Trump’s team were informed of those rules, notably around an area called Section 60, which is reserved for those recently killed.

“Last night I read that I was using the site to politic, that I used it to politic,” Trump said on Thursday night. “This all comes out of Washington, just like all these prosecutors come out of Washington. … These are bad people we’re dealing with.”

The Army said Thursday the Arlington official pushed by the Trump campaign staffers would not press charges and that cemetery