How grieving military families became a pro-Trump force with GOP operative’s help

After months of disagreements, a group of military families who lost loved ones in a bombing during the U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan gathered on a Zoom call last December. On the line with them was a 35-year-old Republican operative and Marine Corps veteran who some saw as helpful and others saw as divisive.

The group had taken to calling itself the Abbey Gate 13 Coalition, a reference to the location at Kabul’s airport where 13 U.S. troops and 170 Afghans had been killed in a suicide bombing on Aug. 26, 2021, in the closing days of America’s longest war, marking a low point in President Joe Biden’s term. The relatives participating expressed disgust with the Biden administration’s handling of the operation, but the group had started to splinter over disputes that included whether to overtly support Donald Trump, according to interviews with people involved and text messages obtained by The Washington Post.

The group asked the mothers of two Marines killed in the bombing to leave over those disagreements, and the rest signed a formal memorandum of understanding that encouraged secrecy and solidarity, according to several parents involved and a copy obtained by The Post. The group added additional members over the next year, while other families chose to abstain.

The women who left the group, Cheryl Rex and Shana Chappell, said the political adviser, Marlon Bateman, told the family members that they could generate attention and donations by staging “political stunts.” Other families on the call deny that happened, and Bateman said he does not remember ever saying words to that effect.

The group captured headlines with recent visits to Capitol Hill, a speaking engagement during the Republican National Convention and a trip to Arlington National Cemetery with Trump on the third anniversary of the bombing. The latter event included an altercation between Trump campaign employees and a cemetery worker who had sought to enforce a law prohibiting partisan activity at the hallowed site, Army officials said. Several families then released videos through the Trump campaign to attack Vice President Kamala Harris, his election opponent, after she criticized his campaign’s actions at the cemetery.

As Trump seeks to pin the tragedy on Harris, she has fought back by noting that Trump oversaw the negotiation of a deal with Taliban militants in February 2020 that undercut the Afghan government and called for the exit of all U.S. troops and the release of 5,000 Taliban members from Afghan prisons.

This account of the Abbey Gate coalition’s efforts is based on interviews with 18 people, including Gold Star family members, Bateman, and congressional and Pentagon officials. The families’ journey to becoming prominent pro-Trump surrogates followed an initial interaction with Biden that angered them, and then active outreach from Trump and support from Bateman and Republican congressmen. The Trump campaign, in its tightly contested race with Harris, has increasingly relied on the group to bolster attacks on Harris over the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Bateman - a former Trump administration official who has helped raise funds for Trump’s campaign this year - said in an emailed response to questions that he assisted the families without pay. He first connected with Darin Hoover, the father of Staff Sgt. Darin “Taylor” Hoover, and advised him to invite all 13 families to join in the same “pursuit of accountability,” he said. Bateman was drawn to the mission in part because he previously served in 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines - the same unit that went on to suffer significant U.S. losses at Abbey Gate.

“I see this as an obligation to honor the legacies of the 13 fallen heroes,” he wrote. “At their request, I helped them navigate the most effective way to get answers about what happened to their children and why, including suggesting they prioritize meetings with members of leadership and members who were already conducting oversight on this matter.”

Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the campaign does not pay Bateman. It has covered travel costs for some of the families to attend Trump events, she said.

Hoover said that Bateman has been “integral” in their efforts and is “family for us now.” It is common for interest groups to have professional advisers.

“We didn’t ask to be political about it,” Hoover said. “In order to get done changes like we want to see, we’ve got to become a little bit political and go through that climate, good, bad or indifferent.”

The adviser

Bateman’s work with the group began last year, after Hoover’s state attorney general, Sean Reyes (R-Utah), connected him with Bateman.

In March 2023, Bateman contacted a fellow alumnus of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, Jonathan Wilcox, who now works for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). Issa became the first lawmaker to bring the families to Congress, coordinating with the staff of Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, for a roundtable discussion in August 2023.

“From the start, I’ve seen Marlon Bateman skillfully and selflessly serve these Gold Star families as their friend, adviser, and tireless champion,” Issa said in a statement.

The event gave the families an opportunity to draw attention to their children, which is always one of their goals, they said. But behind the scenes, there was tension over the way forward.

Chappell, the mother of Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, had not traveled for the events in Washington and took issue with the way some of the other members talked about her, according to text messages between her and Bateman that she provided to The Post.

On Dec. 3, Bateman contacted her and raised concerns about “division that is being formed” in the group. Others involved said that Chappell had disparaged several people and taken issue with how Nikoui’s father, Steven, spoke about their son.

Chappell responded to Bateman that while she still saw Biden as responsible for her son’s death, she saw no chance of getting accountability and wanted to move on.

“Kareem was not political and he disliked Trump and Biden equally so i do not want my son being used in any way to endorse Trump,” she wrote Bateman. “That would piss my son off if he was alive.”

Bateman replied that he was in an “impossible situation” attempting to moderate discussion among the families. He invited Chappell to a Dec. 8 meeting, at which point the other families said she was no longer welcome, she said.

Steven Nikoui, in a written response to questions, said it was “absurd” for Chappell to object to him speaking about their son. She had already done so repeatedly, he said. Chappell said that she had a change of heart, even as she continues to support Trump, and spoke out about other parents after they were “crappy” to her.

Cheryl Rex, the mother of Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola, 20, said she split with the group at the same meeting after she voiced concerns about a proposed memorandum to govern the group. It said that members could be removed from the coalition “for cause” and must keep information shared with the group secret.

Rex, who also had previously spoken out against Biden, said she did not sign the agreement and that others stopped speaking to her after she raised concerns about it and the partisan actions they were pursuing. Bateman “created division within the families” and suggested they should do “political stunts” to generate attention for their cause, she alleged.

Several other family members disputed that account and said the families instead brainstormed how to generate attention. Animosity was evident between Chappell and Steven Nikoui, Hoover said, and the group decided they would rather work with him. He added that he drafted the memorandum to protect both the coalition and Bateman after months of negativity.

“Steve is the dad, and he has every right to say the things he says and do the things that he’s doing in the name of his son,” Hoover said. “No one can take that away from him.”

In March, Steven Nikoui was detained by Capitol Police during Biden’s State of the Union address after an outburst that included “Remember Abbey Gate!”

Shortly before the speech, Bateman posted on X, “Taking off to disrupt the State of the Union w/ @jordanbpeterson,” with a photograph of him and Jordan Peterson, a conservative Canadian author who was attending the speech as the guest of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Bateman and Nikoui both denied that they had planned the outburst, with Bateman saying his post on X was an unrelated “lighthearted message,” and Nikoui saying it was “absurd” to think that Bateman had any role. In an interview shortly after his arrest and subsequent release, the father told Sean Hannity on Fox News that he “just jumped up” during the speech and it was like “the Holy Spirit got in me.”

Biden and Trump

For three years, numerous Abbey Gate families have openly fumed about their meeting with Biden at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware as their children’s remains were returned. They’ve accused Biden of checking his watch, interrupting them and bringing up the loss of his son Beau to cancer, which they viewed as insensitive.

That behavior stands in contrast to how Trump has treated them, they said. Within days of the bombing, he called many of them individually, expressing condolences and listening as they grieved.

The relationship advanced in summer 2023, when Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) arranged to bring the families to visit Trump at his golf club in Bedminister, N.J. Bateman attended, posting online that Trump had spent hours taking photos, signing books and hats, joining them for dinner and entertaining them with music. Another person familiar with the visit said it also included discussion of how poorly Biden’s interaction with the families went.

Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Sgt. Nicole Gee, said Trump’s treatment at Bedminster and the contrast with Dover convinced her that she should become an advocate for him. “He was just much more willing to be frank and open and honest with us and support our belief that it didn’t have to happen,” she said.

Last month, on the third anniversary of the bombing, Bateman and the families brought Trump to visit the headstones of Hoover, Gee, and Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, 23, at Arlington. Army officials instructed Trump’s team not to take photos or video at the gravesites due to a federal law that forbids political activities in military cemeteries. The Army’s guidance also said Trump could not bring campaign staff.

But Trump’s staff members, including Trump’s co-campaign manager and campaign spokesman, came anyway. The visit became so fraught that military staff began conversing with congressional aides who were present to talk to Trump, because they did not want to be dealing with an official political campaign. (A photo of Biden visiting the cemetery as vice president in 2010 was used in a campaign social media post 10 years later with a disclaimer.)

To reach the gravesites in August, Army officials said, Trump aides pushed past a cemetery employee and recorded anyway, producing a campaign TikTok. The families responded with a joint statement supporting Trump’s visit. The Trump campaign denied that a physical altercation occurred and, without evidence, accused the cemetery employee of having a mental health episode, which the Army said was false. The cemetery employee decided not to press charges to protect her privacy, and both the Army and the Trump campaign have said they considered the matter closed.

Bateman appeared with Trump during the memorial ceremony, and posted on social media afterward that it was an “honor to accompany” the former president.

Last Monday, several of the families returned to Washington as McCaul released a new investigative report about the fall of Afghanistan. It included few details that had not been previously reported, but laid out again how U.S. military officials were frustrated with civilian leaders in Washington as security began to crumble.

Throughout the tearful news conference, multiple family members said they did not want to be political - while explicitly urging Americans to vote for Trump over Harris.

“Everybody that says we’re being played, we’re pawns, all these other things - for us, it’s not political. None of us asked to be put in this position,” said Cheryl Juels, Gee’s aunt. “It’s unfortunate that it’s turned into this big political thing between Republicans and Democrats.”

Jim McCollum, the father of Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, also acknowledged Bateman, saying “he has been a rock for us to help us get through this process.” In a text message to The Post, he said that being a part of the coalition “has been instrumental in my healing process” as they sought answers. “I’m upset and disappointed that someone would tarnish any of us,” he said.

On Tuesday, families convened again in the Capitol rotunda for a ceremony posthumously presenting the 13 troops killed with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award that lawmakers can approve.

All 13 were recognized. They include 11 Marines: Gee, Hoover, McCollum, Merola, Nikoui, Lance Cpl. David Espinoza, Cpl. Hunter Lopez, Cpl. Daegan William-Tyeler Page, Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, Cpl. Humberto Sanchez, and Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz. Also recognized were Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, a soldier, and Navy Hospital Corpsman Maxton Soviak.

For some of the relatives, it was the first time seeing one another since Dover.

“It was such an honor because my son deserved it,” said Elizabeth Holguin, Espinoza’s mother. “I don’t get political. I stand for what my son stood for - for the red, white and blue.”

Monika Mathur contributed to this report.