Trump Outright Denies Arlington Cemetery Altercation

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Trump: ‘It Was A Made Up Story’

The plot, as they say, thickens.

Since we last touched base on Trump’s Arlington National Cemetery fiasco, none of the big six outstanding questions have been answered – but Trump may have given himself a new self-inflicted wound.

With the Army declaring the case “closed” after the cemetery staffer in fear of MAGA reprisals declined to press criminal charges over the alleged incident and with a holiday weekend allowing attention to drift away from the story, Trump took the curious step of reigniting the firestorm by publicly issuing a complete denial Tuesday that any kind of altercation took place.

Not only did it not happen but the story was “made up,” Trump claimed, by “Comrade Kamala and her misinformation squad.” It was, in Trump’s telling, just a “BEAUTIFUL DAY OF HONOR” with “no fights or problems.”

Here’s his post:

seems like it should be pretty easy to prove Trump is lying here given that the Arlington altercation was reported to police pic.twitter.com/xwZzJ9XIv2

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 3, 2024

So now we have a situation where the Trump campaign disparaged the cemetery staffer as having a “mental health episode,” said she shouldn’t be in her job, suggested she suffered from Trump Derangement Syndrome – and now Trump himself is claiming nothing even happened.

At the same time, the Army seems desperate to make this all go away.

The Army is currently sitting on the police report filed by the cemetery staffer recounting her version of the incident where she was reportedly verbally abused and shoved aside by two Trump campaign staffers when she tried to enforce cemetery rules against political activities.

As of late last week, Democratic staffers on the Senate Armed Services Committee “have been directly communicating with Army officials about the incident, and are in the process of seeking and receiving the information in the report and about what happened,” according to Greg Sargent. 

At the same time, House Democratic staffers attempting to looking into the matter are “frustrated” about resistance from the Army they’re running into, Sargent reports:

Meanwhile, senior House Democrats are privately pushing Army officials to say more clearly what laws or regulations they think may have been broken and to reveal more details about what happened, another aide says, noting that Democratic staffers are encountering resistance, leaving them frustrated.

With Trump issuing a blanket denial of any incident even occurring, is the Army going to release the police report and provide more details about the incident or leave the cemetery staffer twisting in the wind?

A Story Begging For More Attention: Trump And Egypt

Minority Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, who lack subpoena power, are trying to keep attention focused on last month’s WaPo article on a secret probe into whether Donald Trump accepted $10 million from Egypt – an investigation that was allegedly stymied by the Trump DOJ.

In a letter to Trump dated yesterday, Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin (MD) and Robert Garcia (CA) asked him to “immediately provide the Committee with information and documents necessary to assure the Committee and the American public that you never, directly or indirectly, politically or personally, received any funds from the Egyptian President or government.”

Trump is under no obligation to respond to their request.

Trump Prosecution Watch

Hush money case: A federal judge in Manhattan rejected Donald Trump’s effort to remove his hush money case from state to federal court, in what amounted to a last-ditch bid to avoid his upcoming sentencing for his conviction.

Jan. 6 case: While we await tomorrow’s hearing in federal court in DC on how U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan will handle the issue of presidential immunity, some light reading for you:

• Another stellar thread from Roger Parloff on how “unjust” the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision was.
• The folks at Just Security tackle the presidential immunity issue with the question: How Judge Chutkan Should Apply Trump v. U.S.—and When

Tucker Carlson Is At It Again

The ousted Fox News host invited Holocaust revisionist Darryl Cooper onto his show on X, where Cooper proceeded to call Winston Churchill the “chief villain” of World War II and stripped the Nazis of their own agency in the concentration camps, saying “millions of people ended up dead there” as if by happenstance. Elon Musk tweeted about the episode – “Very interesting. Worth watching” – before deleting the tweet.

Eeesh …

GOP Senate nominee Tim Sheehy (R-MT), the challenger to Sen. Jon Tester (D), was recorded during multiple private fundraisers last year trafficking in stereotypes of Native Americans.

The recordings were first reported last week by the The Char-Koosta News, which bills itself as “The Official News Publication of the Flathead Indian Reservation.” It was subsequently picked up by the NYT:

In one recording, Mr. Sheehy, a cattle rancher and businessman, can be heard saying that he had participated in roping and branding cattle on the Crow Reservation, in southeastern Montana, and that it was “a great way to bond with all the Indians out there, while they’re drunk at 8 a.m.” In another clip, he said that he had ridden in a Crow parade, and that “they’ll let you know whether they like you or not, there’s Coors Light cans flying by your head.”

Neither Senate campaign opted to comment to the NYT.

Okaaay …

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC), the GOP nominee for governor with a long history of online extremism, allegedly had a different pastime in his pre-Facebook days, according to the North Carolina news site The Assembly. That prompted this tweet for the ages:

Chinese Influence Scheme Alleged … In NY Guv’s Office

A woman who worked at senior levels of the New York governor’s office for more than a decade was indicted on multiple counts for what federal prosecutors allege was a long-running, wide-ranging scheme to do China’s bidding in return for money, travel, and other goodies. Her husband was also charged in connection with the alleged scheme. They both pleaded not guilty.

Linda Sun and Chris Hu were apparently not subtle about their expenditures, via the NYT:

Prosecutors say Ms. Sun and Mr. Hu laundered the money they received to buy, among other things, their $3.6 million, five-bedroom home on a cul-de-sac in Manhasset, on the North Shore of Long Island; a $1.9 million condominium in Honolulu; and luxury cars, including a 2024 Ferrari.

The FBI raided their Long Island home in July. Sun was a deputy chief of staff to Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) for about 15 months, ending in 2022.

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