Arlington National Cemetery is a sacred place to the US military and all Americans. JFK, among others, is buried there and there is a certain symbolism to the cemetery being sited on land which was once Robert E. Lee’s.

To the draft-dodging Donald Trump it is just another site for a photo op.

It is now also the site of yet another Trump insult to US veterans, those in military service and the dead from war.

In his latest cack-handed campaign stunt Trump set out to visit Section 60 of the cemetery – where many of the US services members who died in recent wars, such as Afghanistan, are buried.

He was planning to make a point about Biden and the US withdrawal from the country,

NPR reported that during the visit Trump campaign staff pushed and verbally attacked a cemetery official who tried to stop them from taking photos at the site.

Needless to say, the Trump campaign denied that it had occurred, that there was no physical altercation and that it would “release footage to defend against” defamatory claims. It hasn’t been released yet!

Now anyone can decide for themselves: Do you believe Trump intended to campaign at a site at which political campaigning is forbidden? Do you believe Trump staff lied about the situation adding to the many, many lies that spew from Trump and his staffs’ mouths? Do you believe Trump was motivated to sledge Biden for the Afghanistan withdrawal and somehow link Kamala Harris to it?

Or do you believe it was all yet another Trump cynical exploitation of the dead from American wars – at least one of which he had dodged with a convenient medical opinion on his alleged bone spurs.

The Trump campaign claimed it had all been organised at the request of five relatives of slain soldiers. Visitors, of course, can take photographs in Section 60 and it happens all the time.

But the cemetery is distinctive in that there is a law which bans photography for political campaign purposes at the site.

How Trump can claim the visit was not for campaign purposes is amazing. Indeed, one wonders whether he has ever actually visited a military cemetery at all. After all he has described fallen solders as losers – presumably being losers for not having a father rich and influential enough to get their sons out of going to war.

The relatives claimed they had given permission for the visit and filming the visit. Yet, however much the relatives are grieving, the Arlington Cemetery said: “Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidates’ campaign. Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law with all participants.”

So, despite the staffer’s claim the relatives simply couldn’t legally have given their permission and in fact may be in breach of the law in participating at all.

The campaign has said they will release video footage confirming their version of events. It has not been released yet and is arguably, if it exists, evidence that the campaign had breached the law.

It brings to mind the 1954 Army Congressional hearings into alleged communist infiltration alleged by Joe McCarthy.

 The lawyer, Joseph N. Welch, represented the Army. During the course of weeks of hearings, Welch refuted all of McCarthy’s claims and McCarthy began to bellow with rage, shouting at witnesses, attacking a General and alleging a Welch staff member was a communist.

On June 9, 1954, Welch had had enough saying: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

When will someone say to Trump what Welch said to McCarthy? One can only hope it will be the American voting public.