By admin 
Illustration of Mother Jones; Ben Allan Smith/The Missoulian/AP; J. Scott Applewhite/AP
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Last week, Megyn Kelly, former Fox News host and Donald Trump supporter this year, popular to give Montana Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy a chance to explain himself. Over the past year, during a crucial campaign to overthrow the Senate, Sheehy had become embroiled in a scandal over possible stolen valor.
Sheehy says he was shot in Afghanistan; there is a good a lot of evidence that is a lie. Like the Washingtonpost revealed in April, Sheehy told a park ranger in 2015 that the bullet in his arm came from accidentally shooting himself in Glacier National Park.
“So, just to clarify,” Kelly asked, “Did you shoot yourself in the arm?”
Sheehy told Kelly that his opponent’s campaign was based on “character assassination.” But above all he darkened. Kelly kept emphasizing whether he was shot in Afghanistan or in the state park: “What is it?”
Sheehy insisted he did not shoot himself, despite paying a $500 fine for illegally firing a gun in a national park and pleading for leniency in a handwritten note.
“Are there any medical records where the ER can say, ‘We didn’t treat a gunshot wound?’ Kelly followed suit. Sheehy said this was not the case, even though he had previously suggested it was.
“So confusing,” Kelly said, clearly perplexed.
In the end, it didn’t matter: Montana voters wanted a Republican. They chose Sheehy over Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana), the famous seven-fingered rancher who has represented Montana since 2007. Tester’s defeat marks the end of an era: Come January, there will be no more Democratic senators representing red states in the United States. West.
Sheehy’s botched response helped explain why his campaign went south extreme lengths to hide him from reporters this year. Despite initially appearing like a Republican recruit — a young, wealthy, former Navy SEAL — Sheehy turned out to be about as attractive as a cardboard cutout.
Sheehy’s ideology more broadly is also unclear. “I don’t really know what he believes or from what I can tell,” said one Republican operative told Vanity fair“he doesn’t know either.” Sheehy, who is originally from Minnesota and moved to Montana a decade ago, had never run for office before being anointed by state and national Republicans to run against Tester. He also didn’t write or say much about his politics for years.
That left the scandal as one of the few things to talk about. In his book and on the campaign trail, he said a bullet in his right arm came from a shot in combat in Afghanistan. But like the Washingtonpost revealed in April, Sheehy told a park ranger in 2015 that the bullet in his arm came from accidentally shooting himself in Glacier National Park.
In response to Kelly, Sheehy claimed that his campaign had discussed the incident “at length and repeatedly with every media outlet over the past year.” That wasn’t true either. I know because I went out of my way to give Sheehy’s campaign a chance to back up its story. Like me reported in September:
I contacted Sheehy’s campaign on September 3 to ask if they could provide any more data to support the candidate’s story, or if they would make someone available to cover Sheehy’s story on or off the record. defend. The campaign did not respond to the email or a follow-up message (weeks later).
On Wednesday I emailed (Daniel) Watkins, who, according to his official biography, is a “nationally ranked trial attorney and reputation consultant specializing in high-stakes crisis and defamation cases.” Watkins confirmed that he represents Sheehy and asked to review the request I sent to the campaign. He didn’t respond after receiving it.
Since that story broke, Kim Peach, the park ranger who Sheehy told in 2015 that he shot himself, has officially spoken to the After and the New York Times. “I’m 100 percent sure he shot himself that day,” Peach told the BBC Times. He met Sheehy at the hospital that day and remembers the candidate showing him the gun. It was fully loaded except for the one bullet most likely lodged in Sheehy’s arm today. A Navy SEAL who worked closely with Sheehy also reported it Times he believes Sheehy is lying and that Sheehy never talked about being shot in the arm in Afghanistan.
Not surprisingly, there are other problems with the biography of a candidate who seems willing to lie about his injuries in combat. So has the wildfire-fighting company he founded bleeding money and its associated finances leave many reasons to doubt his claims about his business acumen. His Little Belt ranch looks great very much one of the lifestyle games that so many longtime Montanans hate because they’ve helped drive up prices in the state.
The good news for Sheehy is that he won’t have to appear before Montana voters again for at least six years. Maybe it’s enough time to find those medical records.