Mayra Guillén, whose sister was murdered in 2020, posted online in support of former President Trump and dismissed reporting from The Atlantic about the Republican presidential nominee not paying her sister’s funeral costs after reportedly promising to do so.
“Wow. I don’t appreciate how you are exploiting my sister’s death for politics- hurtful & disrespectful to the important changes she made for service members,” Guillén posted on social platform X. “President Donald Trump did nothing but show respect to my family & Vanessa. In fact, I voted for President Trump today.”
Vanessa Guillén was a 20-year-old Army private who was bludgeoned to death by another solider in 2020 at Ford Hood in Texas. Her burned remains were found two months later in a riverbank and her death sparked national outrage.
The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg published an article about Trump and his promise to pay for Guillén’s funeral costs. Trump became angry when he was informed the funeral was $60,000, the article said.
“‘It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a f‑‑‑‑‑‑ Mexican!” Goldberg reported Trump saying. “He later turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: ‘Don’t pay it!’”
The Guillén’s family attorney, Natalie Khawam, told the magazine that she sent the bill for the funeral to the White House but no money was ever received from Trump, the article said.
Khawam said in a post of her own that Goldberg misrepresented their conversation and “outright LIED in HIS sensational story.”
“More importantly, he used and exploited my clients, and Vanessa Guillén’s murder… for cheap political gain,” she wrote.
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows denied the report and said he was in discussions featured in the article.
“Any suggestion that President Trump disparaged Ms. Guillen or refused to pay for her funeral expenses is absolutely false,” Meadows posted on X. “He was nothing but kind, gracious, and wanted to make sure that the military and the U.S. government did right by Vanessa Guillén and her family.”
In a statement reported by The Atlantic and sent by the Trump campaign to The Hill, the campaign said the reporting was “absolutely false.”
“President Donald Trump has spent his life caring for America’s military heroes…,” Trump campaign adviser Alex Pfeiffer wrote in a statement. “There has been no greater advocate for our brave military men and women than Donald J. Trump.”