A former Park Service ranger said Friday that the U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy A Montana lawmaker lied about a bullet wound the candidate claimed was from combat in Afghanistan, an accusation that has dogged Republican campaigns for months.
Former Ranger Kim Peach’s claim that Sheehy actually shot and killed himself during a family vacation in Montana has been criticized by Sheehy and his allies as a smear campaign orchestrated by Democrats in a race expected to help decide the decision. was immediately rejected by control of the senate.
But with less than three weeks left until the election, it will add to the enormous pressure already facing political newcomers running against three-term Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester.
Mr. Sheehy is a former U.S. Navy SEAL, and his military career has been a centerpiece of his presidential bid. In his stump speech and in a book Sheehy published last year, he detailed multiple injuries sustained in combat, including a 2012 injury to his arm.
Sheehy was awarded the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in separate combat incidents, and was also awarded the Bronze Star.
A spokesperson for the Sheehy campaign said Peach is a partisan Democrat who promotes “defamatory articles.”
“Anyone who tries to cover the fact that Tim Sheehy volunteered for war as a young man and spent most of his twenties in some of the most dangerous places in the world is either a partisan hack or a journalist with a agenda. Either he’s an outright criminal, he’s disgusting,” said spokeswoman Katie Martin.
The wound to the arm has been the subject of controversy since The Washington Post cited an anonymous Glacier National Park ranger who said Sheehy was traveling with his family in 2015 when a gun fell from his car and fired. is under intense scrutiny. Located in the Logan Pass parking lot. The ranger quoted in the story was Peach.
Sheehy was cited by Peach and paid a $525 fine for illegally discharging a firearm on the glacier, according to government records.
The Republican candidate responded to a report in April by saying he lied to a park ranger, not that he was injured in Afghanistan.
Sheehy said he fell and injured his arm while hiking on the glacier and made up the bullet wound to hide the fact that the 2012 incident may have been a mutual attack. He said he does not want Afghan SEAL members to suffer any consequences.
“We can’t let him do something like this without the truth being told,” Peach, a Democrat, said Friday as absentee ballots were counted in Montana and Mr. Sheehy’s chances of victory increased. ” he said.
Peach said he interviewed Sheehy at the hospital where he was treated for a gunshot wound.
“He was obviously embarrassed by it at the time, and you know, he admitted what I was there for, which was a gun going off in the park,” Peach told The Associated Press. spoke. “He knows the truth, and the truth isn’t complicated. When you start lying, things get complicated.”
His decision to go public was previously reported by the Post.
Peach worked as a park ranger for more than 30 years and is now retired. He lives in a small town near a glacier. He posted a photo of himself on social media wearing a “Make America Wrong Again” hat and said he would vote Democratic.
He denied any ties to the Tester campaign or other Democratic organizations.
Mr. Tester’s campaign has run ads in recent weeks criticizing Mr. Sheehy for lying about the gunshot wound. A campaign spokeswoman had no immediate comment Friday.
The Montana Democratic Party took Peach’s latest comments as offering a “first-hand account” of what happened to Sheehy.
But Mike Berg, communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, rejected the latest repeated accusations against Sheehy. He suggested this was a sign of desperation on the part of Democrats who feared Tester would lose.
“This is the last gasp of a career politician at the end of his career,” Berg said.
