Former longtime Lee Montana News Editor David McCumber to The Hill: “It goes to credibility and from that standpoint it has the potential to impact the race … It doesn’t pass the smell test”

Helena, MT – New reporting on Oct 27th, from The Hill and The Independenthighlights how there is “intensifying scrutiny” over Tim Sheehy’s pattern of lying about his military record, as “the issue is now getting more attention in Montana” and “longtime observers of Montana politics say the late-breaking controversy of Sheehy’s military record could impact voters.”

David McCumber, a former longtime editor of the Montana Standard and Lee Montana News, tells The Hill that Sheehy’s dishonesty about his service “doesn’t pass the smell test,” is “clearly the topic of conversation” in Montana, and “has the potential to impact the race.” 

Read the latest coverage:

The Hill: Scrutiny over Sheehy’s military record grows in Montana Senate race
By Alexander Bolton
October 27, 2024

• Intensifying scrutiny over businessman and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy’s military record could shake up the Senate race in Montana.
   
• Sheehy, a decorated combat veteran, has been dogged for monthsby questions about a bullet wound he claimed he received during a firefight in Afghanistan after it came to light that a park ranger reported in 2015 that he shot himself accidentally in a parking lot at Glacier National Park.
   
• Longtime observers of Montana politics say the late-breaking controversy of Sheehy’s military record could impact voters.
   
• “It goes to credibility and from that standpoint it has the potential to impact the race,” said David McCumber, the former editor of The Montana Standard and the former regional editor for Lee Enterprises in central Montana.
   
• “From what I hear and from reading accounts and ads, it’s clearly the topic of conversation,” he said, explaining that the question of credibility is “where Sheehy is vulnerable with it.”
   
• “He gets big points for being a decorated veteran. There’s no question about that,” he added, noting that Montana is home to many veterans who served in war. “The default is that Sheehy is a veteran and deserves a lot of credit for that but I think this has the potential to undercut. It does deal with his military service and it doesn’t pass the smell test.”
   
• Sheehy’s conflicting accounts of his arm injury was the subject of stories in The Washington Post and The New York Times earlier this month, but the issue is now getting more attention in Montana, where a group of military veterans supporting Tester this week demanded that Sheehy release his medical records.
   
• Now Tester is pressing the issue in a new television ad highlighting skepticism about Sheehy’s claim that he was wounded in combat as he has described on the campaign trail.
   
• Tester’s ad shows a clip of Sheehy claiming “I have a bullet stuck in this arm still from Afghanistan” juxtaposed with media reports that a national park ranger, Kim Peach, is certain Sheehy instead shot himself accidently.
   
• A new television ad was also launched this week by Senate Majority PAC, the Senate Democrats’ biggest super PAC, features a video clip of a former SEAL who trained with Sheehy contesting his one-time friend’s claim that he was shot in Afghanistan.
   
• “Tim and I had about as close a working relationship in the platoon as possible. So when he says he took a bullet in the arm in Afghanistan, we all know it’s not true. We would have seen it, we would have heard about it,” said Dave Madden, the former SEAL who also shared his skepticism about Sheehy’s claim in an interview with The New York Times.
   
• NBC Montana, MTN News and other local media outlets have picked up on the story in recent days.
   
• Several military veterans supporting Tester held a press conference in Missoula Tuesday demanding that Sheehy release his medical records to help clear up the controversy.
   
• “If Tim Sheehy really wants to tell Montanans the truth, he could come clean and release his medical records from the Kalispell hospital from that day in Glacier,” Jonas Rides At The Door, a Marine Corps combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient who served in Iraq, told The Daily Montanan.
   
• The Sheehy campaign responded Friday with its own television ad pushing back on Tester and others questioning his story of being shot in the arm during combat.
   
• He makes no mention of the bullet lodged in his arm, however.
   
• A group called Republicans for Tester has taken out full-page newspaper ads statewide next week accusing Sheehy of “dishonesty about his service.” It features a blown-up image of the park ranger’s report of the shooting at Glacier and quotes from veterans criticizing the Republican candidate.
   

The Independent: Questions about GOP candidate’s medical discharge fuel talk about bullet wound scandal
By John Bowden
October 27, 2024

• The Montana Senate race is increasingly being dominated by talk of scandal as the election enters its final week.
   
• After questions previously emerged about whether Sheehy was wounded during his service in Afghanistan as a Navy SEAL, new reporting from NBC News emerged this week revealed another apparent contradiction. The Republican Senate candidate has claimed that he was “medically discharged” from the Navy after being diagnosed with a “tiny hole” in his heart, but “heavily redacted” records obtained by NBC pertaining to Sheehy’s discharge do not state that as a reason and list his discharge as voluntary.
   
• The bullet wound accusations has followed the Republican for months, especially given the lack of firm documentation to validate his claims.
   
• A Washington Post story, citing a former US park ranger who would later come forward and reveal his identity, claimed that he was certain that Sheehy had sustained his bullet wound while on an excursion in Montana’s iconic Glacier National Park, not in Afghanistan as he has said
   
• The latest questions about Sheehy’s medical discharge are likely to add fuel to the arguments around his bullet-wound scandal.
   
• One former editor of a Montana newspaper told The Hill that conversations about the race in the state itself have largely shifted to Sheehy’s military record.