Tuesday, September 3, 2024

How he gets away with it


And the official who was assaulted refused to press charges out of fear of retaliation by Trump's MAGA supporters.

Bullies and authoritarians rule by fear and intimidation.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 09/06/2024:
This week, Trump contradicted his own campaign with a post on Truth Social falsely calling the confrontation a “made up story by Comrade Kamala and her misinformation squad” that attacked Harris and Biden for not attending the private ceremony.

In an interview on Sean Hannity’s radio show Tuesday, Trump reiterated the false assertion that nothing happened at the cemetery, questioning the motives of the unnamed employee and downplaying the accusations as attacks over “publicity.”

“Do you notice that the person represented now doesn’t want to talk, he doesn’t want to speak or talk?” Trump asked, mislabeling the employee as male. “The nice thing, the beautiful thing, was all the parents and relatives got together and they said ‘That’s a false story, it was totally false.’”

[...]

NPR is identifying both staffers after the campaign’s conflicting responses to the incident last week outside Section 60 of the cemetery, where many casualties of Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.

The two staffers, according to a source with knowledge of the incident, are deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and Michel Picard, a member of Trump’s advance team.

[...]

ANC rules, that had been made clear to the Trump campaign in advance, say that only an official Arlington photographer can take pictures or film in Section 60. When an ANC employee tried to enforce the rules, she was verbally abused by the two Trump campaign operatives, according to a source with knowledge of the incident. Picard then pushed her out of the way according to two Pentagon officials.

After NPR first reported the altercation last week, campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said they were “prepared to release footage” of the incident, and attacked the Arlington employee as someone “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.” Cheung also said they were granted access to have a photographer present, and pointed to a statement from Gold Star family members that invited Trump to attend the ceremony.

The campaign also released a TikTok video that included video footage from Section 60, including a smiling Trump flashing a thumbs up with family members at the gravesites. But other tombstones are visible in the picture, and at least one family of a fallen Green Beret has confirmed they did not give permission for his grave to be filmed or used in a campaign ad.

  NPR
Pretty sure it wouldn't matter if they did "give permission". The only permission that counts is from Arlington.
The Trump campaign has still not followed through on its pledge to release video of the incident, despite repeated requests from NPR.

[...]

The Army released a statement last Thursday acknowledging that a cemetery employee “was abruptly pushed aside” and the campaign was warned ahead of time of the prohibition against photography and political activities at Arlington. The Army said the cemetery employee tried to de-escalate the situation after she was pushed, in hopes of not upsetting the Gold Star families in attendance.

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