Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is facing new accusations that he lied about his background after a 2006 letter sent by the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce during his vice presidential campaign resurfaced.
When Walz first ran for Congress from Minnesota, he touted on his campaign website that he had received an award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce in 1993 for his contributions to the business community, according to a 2006 Post-Bulletin article.
But he never received the award, which was communicated to him in a scathing letter from Barry L. Kennedy, then president of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce.
“We have investigated this matter and can confirm that you have not received any awards from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce,” the Nov. 1, 2006 letter to Walz said.
“We are not drawing any conclusions about your intentions based on the inclusion of this sentence in your bio. However, we would respectfully ask that you remove the reference to our organization, as it could be perceived as an endorsement of your candidacy. We should point out, however, that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorses your opponent, Rep. Gil Gutknecht, for his support of small business issues,” Kennedy continued.
The letter was discovered last week by Minnesota outlet Alpha News after a local controversy erupted in 2006.
The Post-Bulletin, a Rochester, Minnesota-based newspaper, reported in 2006 that Walz’s House campaign had updated its website to say that while he had not received an award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, he had received an award from the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce, known as the Jaycees.
The media outlet reported at the time that the election campaign manager at the time dismissed the issue as a “typographical error.”
In response to inquiries from Fox Digital about the 2006 controversy, the Harris-Waltz campaign said Waltz frequently speaks “openly and extemporaneously.”
“Governor Walz speaks candidly and extemporaneously like a normal person. Americans appreciate that Governor Walz tells the truth and doesn’t talk like a politician. They also understand the difference between someone who occasionally slips up and a pathological liar like Donald Trump,” the campaign said.
The allegations follow a long history of accusations that Walz has misrepresented himself and his background, most notably by a group of military veterans who have accused the Gopher State Democrat of lying about his own military record.
Walz served in the Army National Guard for 24 years before retiring in 2005, and then ran a successful congressional campaign, representing Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2019.
Since Vice President Kamala Harris selected Waltz as her running mate, he has been criticized by many veterans for lying about his military history, including publicly identifying himself as a retired “master sergeant.”
Here’s an update on vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s time in the military.
Waltz was promoted to master sergeant after deploying to Italy in 2004, but did not complete the U.S. Army Sergeant Major Academy coursework in order to retain his rank after retirement. Waltz instead retired as a sergeant major, one rank below master sergeant.
“For 20 years this guy has lied about being deployed to Iraq, which he didn’t, and he’s lied about being discharged as a master sergeant, which he didn’t. That’s a complete lie,” former Navy captain and Republican Virginia Senate candidate Hun Kao told the New York Post this month about Walz.
The battalion commander of Walz’s former Minnesota Army National Guard unit also issued a scathing message earlier this month about Harris’ running mate describing himself as a “retired Army sergeant major.”
