A former Park Service ranger said Friday that U.S. Senate hopeful Tim Sheehy of Montana has been lying about a bullet wound that the candidate said came from fighting in Afghanistan — going public with an accusation that has nagged the Republican’s campaign for months.
The claim from former ranger Kim Peach that Sheehy in fact shot himself on a family trip in Montana was immediately dismissed by Sheehy and his allies as a smear campaign engineered by Democrats in a race that’s expected to help decide control of the Senate.
But with the election less than three weeks away, it adds to the huge pressures that the political newcomer already faced as he challenges three-term Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester.
Sheehy is a former U.S. Navy SEAL and his military record is a centerpiece of his bid for office. During stump speeches and in a book published by Sheehy last year, he recounts being wounded on multiple occasions during combat, including in the arm in 2012.
Sheehy was awarded a Purple Heart for wounds sustained in a separate combat incident and was also awarded a Bronze Star.
A Sheehy campaign spokesperson said Peach was a partisan Democrat pushing a “defamatory story.”
“Anyone trying to take away from the fact that Tim Sheehy 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,” spokesperson Katie Martin said.
He’s faced scrutiny over the arm wound since April, when The Washington Post quoted a Glacier National Park ranger anonymously saying Sheehy accidentally shot himself in 2015, when he was travelling with his family and his gun fell out of a vehicle and fired when it hit the ground in a parking lot on Logan Pass. The ranger who was quoted in the story was Peach.
Article URL: https://fortune.com/2024/10/18/montana-gop-senate-candidate-gunshot-tim-sheehy-war-wound/amp/