Intensifying scrutiny over businessman and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy’s military record could shake up the Senate race in Montana, where Sheehy, the GOP candidate, is pulling away from incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in the polls.
Sheehy, a decorated combat veteran, has been dogged for months by 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 Glacier National Park parking lot.
Sheehy now claims he fabricated the parking lot story to explain to cover up for a fellow soldier whose bullet ricocheted into his arm during a skirmish in Afghanistan.
Longtime observers of Montana politics say the late-breaking controversy of Sheehy’s military record could impact voters, though they question whether it’s enough to help Tester save his seat.
“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 served as a Navy SEAL officer in Iraq, Afghanistan, South America and the Pacific, earning a Bronze Star with valor and a Purple Heart across dozens of engagements with enemy forces, according to his campaign website.
Sheehy’s conflicting accounts of his arm injury were 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 veterans supporting Tester demanded this week that Sheehy release his medical records.
The Washington Post first broke the story that Sheehy told a park ranger in 2015 that he shot himself after dropping his revolver in a parking lot.
The ranger, Kim Peach, told the Times in an interview: “I am 100 percent sure he shot himself that day,” referring to the October 2015 incident that he responded to in Glacier.
Peach says Sheehy told him at a hospital outside the park that his .45-caliber revolver discharged accidentally after he dropped it, hitting him in the arm. Peach investigated the incident after a someone reported a shot being fired in a parking lot.
In a written statement to park service investigators, Sheehy testified that “while reloading our vehicle an improperly placed firearm kept in the vehicle for bear protection fell out and discharged into my right forearm.”
Sheehy paid a $525 fine to settle the matter, as discharging a firearm in a national park is illegal.
Sheehy’s lawyers told the Times that Sheehy did indeed sustain the wound in Afghanistan, but did not initially report it because he suspected it was caused by friendly fire. But when Sheehy went to the hospital nine years for an unrelated injury, doctors told him he needed to explain the bullet still embedded in his arm to law enforcement.
The attorney said Sheehy made up the story of accidentally shooting himself to protect his former platoonmates and that any attempt to dispute his claim of being wounded in combat is “tantamount to falsely accusing him of stolen valor.”
Katie Martin, a spokesperson for the Sheehy campaign, said he “served our nation with honor” and said attempts to raise questions about his character and military record were “appalling.”
“Tim Sheehy humbly served our nation with honor and served alongside many heroes. Many of them never came home. Full stop. The bullet in Tim’s arm was a result of his service in Afghanistan. Tim never reported it because he didn’t want to trigger an investigation of his team, be pulled from the battlefield, and see a fellow teammate be punished,” Martin said.
“It was always about protecting a fellow team member of his unit he thought could have been responsible due to friendly fire ricochet in the heat of an engagement with the enemy,” the spokesperson added. “To witness the media in cahoots with Jon Tester and his allies attempting to tear down a combat veteran’s record is appalling, and they should be ashamed of themselves. It shows just how desperate they are to win this U.S. Senate race. Jon Tester doesn’t care about veterans and their sacrifices; he only cares about another term in office.”
Now Tester is pressing the issue, with a new TV ad highlighting skepticism about Sheehy’s claim that he was wounded in combat as he has described on the campaign trail.
The Tester ad shows a clip of Sheehy claiming he has "a bullet stuck in this arm still from Afghanistan” juxtaposed with media reports that Peach is certain Sheehy instead shot himself accidentally.
Another ad was launched this week by Senate Majority PAC, the Senate Democrats’ biggest super PAC, featuring a video clip of a former SEAL who trained with Sheehy contesting his onetime 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 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 on Tuesday demanding 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 TV ad pushing back on Tester and others questioning his story of being shot in the arm during combat.
“Jon Tester is desperate and losing. Seen these Democrat lies?” the ad’s narrator says at the start of the ad, which labels the park ranger who blew the whistle on Sheehy “a never Trumper.”
Sheehy tells viewers, "I joined the Navy at 18. I met my wife in the military," and shares more details about his military service. He said he received the Purple Heart after being wounded by an improvised explosive device, and a Bronze Star with valor “after carrying a wounded brother out of enemy fire.”
He makes no mention of the bullet lodged in his arm, however.
Martin said Sheehy got into the race “to put our country first and won’t ever let any of this slander stop him from fighting every day as your next U.S. senator.”
“What Montanans know is that Tim Sheehy is an American Warrior who fought for our country and laid his life on the line for our freedoms. Anyone trying to take away from the fact that he signed up for war as a young man and spent most of his 20s in some of the most dangerous places in the world is either a partisan hack, a journalist with an agenda, or outright a disgusting person,” she said.
Election handicappers have said Sheehy, who is leading Tester in recent polls, is likely to win the race in a state that former President Trump carried by 16 percentage points in 2020.
But Democrats want to change the dynamics of the race in the final week by raising questions about his credibility and character.
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.
Updated at 10:09 a.m. EDT