Aunt says Trump showed ‘disrespect’ for slain soldier’s family

MIAMI — President Donald Trump emphatically rejected claims Wednesday that he was disrespectful to the grieving family of a slain soldier, as the firestorm he ignited over his assertions of empathy for American service members spread into a third contentious day. “I have proof,” he insisted. The controversy over how Trump has conducted one of the most sacred of presidential tasks generated new turmoil in the White House.

After one slain soldier’s father accused the president of going back on a promise to send a check for $25,000, the White House said the money had been sent.

Chief of staff John Kelly, a retired Marine general whose son was killed in Afghanistan, was left angry and frustrated at the way the issue has become politicized.

The dispute was fresh evidence of Trump’s willingness to attack any critic and do battle over the most sensitive of matters – and critics’ readiness to find fault with his words.

The aunt of an Army sergeant killed in Niger, who raised the soldier as her son, said Wednesday that Trump had shown “disrespect” to the soldier’s loved ones as he telephoned them to extend condolences as they drove to the Miami airport to receive his body.

Sgt. La David Johnson was one of four American soldiers killed nearly two weeks ago; Trump called the families on Tuesday.

Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Florida Democrat who was in the car with Johnson’s family, said in an interview that Trump had told the widow that “you know that this could happen when you signed up for it... but it still hurts.” He also referred to Johnson as “your guy,” Wilson said, which the congresswoman found insensitive.

Cowanda Jones-Johnson, who raised the soldier from age five after his mother died, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the Democratic congresswoman’s account was correct.

“Yes the statement is true,” she said. “I was in the car and I heard the full conversation.

At the airport, widow Myeshia Johnson leaned in grief across the flag-draped coffin after a military guard received it.

“She was crying for the whole time,” Wilson said. “And the worst part of it: When he hung up you know what she turned to me and said? She said, ‘He didn’t even remember his name.’”

Trump started the storm this week when he claimed that he alone of U.S. presidents had called the families of all slain soldiers.

AP found relatives of four soldiers who died overseas during Trump’s presidency who said they never received calls from him. Relatives of three also said they did not get letters.

Obama and George W. Bush – saddled with far more combat casualties than the roughly two dozen so far under Trump – did not call all those soldiers’ families, either, but both did take steps to write, call or meet bereaved military families.