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Kamala Harris Campaign Quietly Changes Website as Tim Walz’s ‘Stolen Valor’ Scandal Intensifies

kamala-harris-campaign-quietly-changes-website-as-tim-walz’s-‘stolen-valor’-scandal-intensifies
Kamala Harris Campaign Quietly Changes Website as Tim Walz’s ‘Stolen Valor’ Scandal Intensifies

Commentary

 By Samuel Short  August 9, 2024 at 8:20am

Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is trying its best to avoid the controversy surrounding her VP pick’s military service.

To no surprise, after the Harris campaign announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, inquiring minds proceeded to take a fine tooth comb to his record of public service.

While you could certainly criticize Walz for his pandering to the far left in the wake of George Floyd’s death in 2020, his 24-year military service is a topic itself as Walz has deliberately misrepresented that part of his life leading to accusations of stolen valor.

Now — as Politico reported on Thursday — the Harris campaign is trying to sweep that under the rug by updating its website’s online biography for Walz.

While the campaign website once read that Walz, “retired command sergeant major,” it now reads that he rose, “to the rank of Command Sergeant Major.”

While Walz did become a Command Sergeant Major, by the time of he left the military, he was the lower rank of master sergeant given that he did not have coursework with the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy completed to be higher ranked.

So, Walz did achieve the rank the Harris campaign says he did, but he did not retire at that rank.

As previously stated, with Walz being thrust into the spotlight in potentially being the next vice president, now the American people are learning about more disparaging claims from his record.

As Walz ran for re-election as governor in 2022, retired Command Sgt. Maj. Doug Julin made the lofty claim that Walz, “abandoned his soldiers” when he made, “a backdoor deal” that allowed him to miss his unit’s deployment to Iraq in 2005.

Should Tim Walz drop out of the race?

At the time, Julin was Walz’s brigade command sergeant major.

“He went around my authority to get out of the position. I probably would have told him, ‘No, you’re going on the deployment,’” Walz called out.

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has rightfully seized the opportunity to contrast Walz record with Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.

At a campaign event on Wednesday in Michigan, Vance touted his own deployment to Iraq with the marines while blasting Walz.

“When Tim Walz was asked to go to Iraq by his country, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him,” Vance said.

“What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage,” the GOP VP pick continued, laying into Walz by saying, “I’d be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did.”

This isn’t the attention the Harris campaign is looking for, but what else do they have?

Their candidate has spent almost four years doing nothing to improve the country.

They now create a duo of Harris and a man who let his state burn and lied about his service.

This ticket doesn’t have merits to stand on.

Sam Short is an Instructor of History with Motlow State Community College in Smyrna, Tennessee. He holds a BA in History from Middle Tennessee State University and an MA in History from University College London.

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