Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign put out a statement falsely claiming her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, had “chaired” the Veterans Affairs Committee.
The statement came as the campaign defended Walz’s military record, which has been heavily scrutinized since he was announced as Harris’ VP pick. The statement, given to media outlets such as Axios, defended Walz’s service in general terms before falsely claiming he chaired the influential committee.
“After 24 years of military service, Governor Walz retired in 2005 and ran for Congress, where he chaired Veterans Affairs and was a tireless advocate for our men and women in uniform — and as Vice President of the United States he will continue to be a relentless champion for our veterans and military families,” the campaign said.
But as Real Clear Politics reported, Walz never chaired the committee. He spent more than a decade in the House of Representatives and rose to become the ranking member on the Veterans Affairs Committee – meaning he was the highest ranking member for the party not in power – but he never actually chaired the committee.
A Harris aide told RCP that the campaign made “an innocent mistake” in making the claim.
“Governor Walz was ranking member/top Democrat on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs,” a spokesperson told the outlet.
The “mistake” comes after Walz’s misleading comments about his military service became national news. Walz has repeatedly claimed he retired as a “command sergeant major,” when he, in fact, retired as a master sergeant because he didn’t meet the conditions to maintain his promotion to command sergeant major.
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The Harris campaign has already had to change his official vice presidential campaign biography because it initially said he was a “retired Command Sergeant Major.” The bio now says he “served as a command sergeant major.”
Walz had been promoted to command sergeant major on the basis that he would serve additional time following that promotion, but he retired after his unit was warned it could be deployed to Iraq.
In an open letter posted to Facebook in 2018, retired Command Sergeants Major Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr wrote that Walz retired just a few months after receiving a warning order that his battalion would be deployed to Iraq – even though he told military personnel he would be going on the mission.
“On May 16th, 2005, [Walz] quit, betraying his country, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war,” Behrends and Herr wrote.
RELATED: Tim Walz Repeatedly Misconstrued His Military Service. Here Are The Examples.
