The US army has been ordered to release documents about the Donald Trump campaign’s pugnacious visit to Arlington national cemetery in a move that threatens to reignite accusations over the Republican nominee’s attitude to military service members in the final phase of the presidential election.
The court order, in response to a lawsuit filed by transparency advocates, came on Tuesday with an end-of-the-week deadline and could shed new light on an episode that saw Trump accused of exploiting America’s most venerated military burial site for campaigning purposes in August.
A senior judge on the US district court for the District of Columbia, Paul Friedman, ordered the army to release documentation relating to the episode in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit brought by American Oversight, a group dedicated to the release of public records.
It filed the case on 3 October after the army did not response to a previous FOIA request.
Several Democrats, including Jamie Raskin, the party’s ranking member on the US House’s oversight committee, had also requested that the army release its incident report into the former president’s 26 August visit to the cemetery, which was supposed to mark the third anniversary of a deadly suicide attack that killed 13 US troops in Kabul during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
The court order was hailed by American Oversight’s interim executive director, Chioma Chukwu, who said: “With the election just two weeks away, the American people have a clear and compelling interest in knowing how the government responded to an alleged incident involving a major presidential candidate who has a history of politicising the military.
“These records belong to the public, and we’re pleased the court agreed on the need to expedite our request. We look forward to receiving the incident report and making it available to the public.”
Trump’s cemetery visit erupted into a highly charged political row when members of his campaign staff became embroiled in a scuffle with a female cemetery worker after she tried to enforce regulations by preventing them from filming and photographing in a restricted area reserved for fallen members of the US armed forces.
Democrats have sought to make the visit an election issue, arguing it portrays Trump’s disrespect for military members, which has also been documented in numerous comments attributed to him by former aides.
The army issued a rare rebuke to the Trump campaign team over the episode, noting: “Federal laws, army regulations and [Department of Defense] policies … clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.”
Trump visited the cemetery at the invitation of some fallen service members’ relatives to attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He then moved on to Section 60, a burial site for those killed at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, where picture taking is prohibited.
Pictures and footage of the former president smiling broadly and giving the thumbs-up sign were subsequently released and circulated on social media.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and later released letters of support from families who had been involved in his visit. Other families criticised the visit.
Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic opponent in the presidential election, accused him of “disrespect[ing] sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt”.
Democrats argued that the real purpose of Trump’s visit was not to honour fallen soldiers but to make political capital out of the Biden administration’s heavily criticised handling of the Afghan withdrawal during an election campaign.
