Officials at Arlington national cemetery have filed a report over the behavior of members of Donald Trump’s campaign staff who reportedly shoved and verbally abused an employee during a “crass” photo opportunity for the Republican presidential candidate.

The officials confirmed that a confrontation took place at the Virginia cemetery on Monday after the former president participated in a wreath-laying ceremony for 13 US servicemen and -women killed in a 2021 suicide bomb attack outside Kabul airport in Afghanistan.

In a statement, Arlington acknowledged one of its representatives became involved in the altercation with two Trump staffers, telling them that only cemetery representatives were allowed to take video and photographs in Section 60, an area where recent US casualties, mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan, are buried.

“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 candidate’s campaign,” the statement said, adding that “a report was filed” over the incident.

“Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants,” the statement said.

The staffers “verbally abused and pushed the official aside” as the person attempted to prevent them from accompanying Trump into the section, according to NPR, which first published the allegation on Tuesday night.

JD Vance later on Wednesday dismissed the row as media exaggeration over “a little disagreement”. But Trump’s running mate also laid into Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic rival for the White House in November and the US vice-president, for the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying Harris could “go to hell”.

At an event in Wisconsin later on Wednesday, Vance was asked by a journalist whether or not someone who wants to be president should have to abide by the law outlined by Arlington.

In response, he accused the media of “acting like Donald Trump filmed a TV commercial at a gravesite”.

Following the wreath-laying, photographs from his visit showed Trump grinning and flashing a thumbs-up sign as he stood at the graves of several of the fallen military members, imagery that drew swift rebuke.

The family of Master Sgt Andrew Marckesano, who is buried in Arlington, issued a statement on Wednesday saying that they had not given Trump’s staff permission to film at Marckesano’s gravesite, though another family, that of Sgt Darin Taylor Hoover, also buried there, had given permission, the New York Times reported.

In a statement shared with the New York Times, Marckesano’s sister Michelle said: “According to our conversation with Arlington National Cemetery, the Trump campaign staffers did not adhere to the rules that were set in place for this visit to Staff Sergeant Hoover’s gravesite in Section 60, which lays directly next to my brother’s grave.”

She continued: “We hope that those visiting this sacred site understand that these were real people who sacrificed for our freedom and that they are honored and respected accordingly.”

Trump was reported in 2018 to have canceled a visit to an American military cemetery outside Paris because he thought the dead soldiers were “suckers” and “losers”, and because he did not want the rain to mess up his hair.

Instead of an apology, the Trump campaign attempted to turn around the narrative of the Arlington incident, with senior officials separately branding the cemetery’s representative “a despicable individual” who was experiencing “a mental health episode”.

“There was no physical altercation as described and we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made,” the campaign’s communications director, Steven Cheung, said in a statement.

“The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony.”

The senior Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita, meanwhile, posted a video to X of Trump placing flowers on a grave, and launched a tirade against the Arlington staff member, saying they were “spreading lies”.

“For a despicable individual to physically prevent President Trump’s team from accompanying him to this solemn event is a disgrace and does not deserve to represent the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery,” LaCivita, a former marine, said in a statement reported by NBC.

Mark Esper, a former defense secretary under Donald Trump, told CNN on Wednesday morning that he hoped the reported altercation would be investigated, adding that the grounds should never be used for “partisan political purposes”.

Members of some of the service members’ families also issued a statement, supporting Trump and thanking him for his visit, which he posted to his Truth Social network.

Vance was speaking during a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, when he said of the US military deaths: “Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened. She wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can go to hell!”

Trump has previously attempted to gain political capital from the haphazard 2021 US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he signed off on during his single term of office and which took place during the first year of Joe Biden’s administration.

“Caused by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, the humiliation in Afghanistan set off the collapse of American credibility and respect all around the world,” Trump claimed on Monday in a speech at the National Guard Association conference in Michigan commemorating the third anniversary of the Kabul airport attack.

A scathing state department report published earlier this year criticized both Biden and Trump for decisions they made leading to the chaotic evacuation, and the bombing at the airport gate that killed 150 Afghans alongside the 13 Americans.

A group called Veterans for Responsible Leadership posted on X, at the top of a thread going into the cemetery rules: “Trump not only violated the sanctity of Arlington, but he violated the official cemetery conduct.”

Hellen Sullivan, Chris Stein and Maya Yang contributed reporting