Trump defends US diplomat's wife who fled UK after killing teenager Harry Dunn in wrong-way crash, family calls him 'insensitive'
Donald Trump has defended the wife of a CIA operative who is the accused in the death of a British teenager, suggesting that the accident unfolded because it was difficult to get used to driving on the other side of the road.
We had previously reported that CCTV footage obtained by the Northamptonshire Police showed 42-year-old Anne Sacoolas pulling out of RAF Croughton, a US intelligence hub in Britain, on the wrong side of the road on August 27, and traveling almost 400 yards before colliding with 19-year-old Harry Dunn.
Dunn suffered multiple injuries in the accident and later died at a hospital, and as the police prepared to file charges of death by dangerous driving against Sacoolas with the Crown Prosecution Service, she fled the country, despite previously assuring authorities that she would be cooperating with them.
Since then, Dunn's parents, mother Charlotte Charles and father Tim Dunn, have rallied and called for UK officials and Prime Minister Boris Johnson to intervene and pressurize the US to send Sacoolas back to face justice but have been rebuffed by claims that the 42-year-old has diplomatic immunity.
They had also called on Trump to help them get justice, though his recent comments have made that scenario look unlikely as well.
While speaking about the case publicly for the first time, the US president acknowledged that a tragedy had occurred and that Sacoolas had been driving on the wrong side of the road, but said "that can happen" and that he had been guilty of it when he had come to the UK as well.
"Those are the opposite roads," he said. "That can happen. I won't say it ever happened to me, but it did. When you get used to driving on our system and you're all of a sudden on the other system, where you're driving, it happens. You have to be careful."
He called it a "very complex issue" and said, "We are going to speak to her very shortly and do something where they meet. We are going to speak to her and see if we can come up with something so there is some healing."
He added that there was "tremendous anger" over the case and that he understood why people feel like she should be stripped of diplomatic immunity, but did not indicate that he would do anything of the sort.
"I understand where the people from the UK [feel], and frankly a lot of Americans feel the same," he said. "The person that was driving the automobile has diplomatic immunity. It was an accident, It was a terrible accident."
Trump's comments came in the wake of a meeting Charlotte and Tim had with British foreign secretary Dominic Raab that they said was a "publicity stunt" and left them feeling "angry and frustrated."
Unsurprisingly, the US president's stance did not sit too well with the family either, who released a scathing statement to the Daily Mail where they called it "oafish" and "insulting."
"Trump's comments are an attempted justification for what Anne Sacoolas did," the statement read. "They are insensitive, clumsy, oafish and insulting. We are horrified by his words and this has just brought more pain to the Dunn family."
"Trump has just inflamed the situation. He's caused more hurt and made the matter worse. His choice of words is appalling," the statement added.