Vice President Kamala Harris claims Donald Trump "disrespected sacred ground" when his staff reportedly got into an altercation with an official at Arlington National Cemetery.
The U.S. Army said the cemetery employee was "pushed aside" when they tried to stop the Trump campaign staffers from filming in a section of the grounds where recent casualties have been buried, known as Section 60.
In a statement Saturday, Harris said she has visited Arlington National Cemetery several times, adding, "It's not a place for politics."
"I will always honor the service and sacrifice of all of America’s fallen heroes, who made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our beloved nation and our cherished freedoms," Harris said. "I mourn them and salute them. And I will never politicize them."
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There are strict federal laws about what can and can't be done at Arlington National Cemetery, according to Tanya Marsh, a law professor at Wake Forest University who specializes in cemetery law.
"One of the very specific prohibitions in the code of federal regulations is that memorial services and ceremonies at cemeteries like Arlington will not include partisan political activities," Marsh told Scripps News. "That's not a prohibition that a family has the right to just give permission to for a political figure to ignore."
On Friday, Trump said the pictures were being taken at the request of family members who lost loved ones, adding he was shocked about the fallout.
"We took pictures at the different grave sites, and that was it. It was beautiful," Trump said.
The Trump campaign has attempted to downplay the incident. A Trump spokesman claimed that the cemetery officials were "clearly suffering from a mental health episode."
Trump was visiting the cemetery to honor the 13 U.S. military service members who were killed three years ago at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
RELATED STORY | Historian Allan Lichtman explains Arlington Cemetery's ban on political activity
