President Trump ordered the United States flag flown at half-staff Tuesday in honor of the victims of the massacre at the Capital Gazette newspapers in Annapolis last week. But the order didn’t come without some controversy.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that the president issued the order as soon as he got the request from Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley.
"There’s a certain protocol that is followed," she said. "It was. But once the president heard about the mayor’s specific request to him, he fulfilled the mayor’s request and ordered that the flags be lowered."
But that’s not how Buckley remembered it at a news conference Tuesday morning.
He told reporters his staff put in requests for the order last week through Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s office, Maryland’s Congressional delegation, both Maryland senators and "anyone that was connected to the White House."
"We waited all of Saturday, all of Sunday," he recalled. "We understood that maybe there was some communication problems and that we would accept that even though the community was hurting. And so we waited all day Monday."
But he said they heard Monday night the request had been turned down. Then he got a call from Sanders at 7:16 a.m. Tuesday telling him the President had approved the request.