Documents reveal that rain and cloud cover prevented President Trump from attending a ceremony honoring World War I soldiers while in France last year.
Trump was heavily criticized for not attending the event. At the time he said that it wasn’t his decision to cancel, noting that he was prevented from taking the trip due to the weather.
When the White House announced that weather had prevented the trip, some questioned the claim. The White House said that scheduling and logistical challenges arising from the weather were to blame and that it would have been difficult to arrange a motorcade to the cemetery, which is about 50 miles from Paris.
Documents released by Buzzfeed News through a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of the Navy show that Trump was telling the truth and that officials did cancel the trip because of the weather forecast.
NEW via my #FOIA from Dept of the Navy.
Remember last November when WH said Trump could not attend WW1 memorial at US cemetery in France due to rain?
Well, his transport really was canceled by the Navy due to rain.
Emails pic.twitter.com/pkkKwsX2Bs
— Jason Leopold (@JasonLeopold) May 28, 2019
Copies of emails from the trip reveal that a bad weather call was made for the Nov. 10 ceremony. The author of one of the emails, whose name is redacted, said that visibility could be as low as one mile the day of the event and that there would be “mist, low [cloud] ceilings, and rainfall.”
