Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is facing another accusation of misrepresenting his background after a Nebraska Chamber of Commerce letter from 2006 resurfaced amid Walz’s campaign for vice president.
When Walz first ran for Congress in Minnesota, he touted on his campaign website that he received an award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce in 1993 for his work with the business community, according to a 2006 article from the Post Bulletin.
He never received such an award, however, which was outlined to him in a blistering letter from the then-president of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, Barry L. Kennedy.
“We researched this matter and can confirm that you have not been the recipient of any award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce,” the letter addressed to Walz on Nov. 1, 2006, reads.
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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz takes the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Aug. 21, 2024. (Reuters/Mike Segar)
“I am not going to draw a conclusion about your intentions by including this line in your biography. However, we respectfully request that you remove any reference to our organization as it could be considered an endorsement of your candidacy. It should be pointed out, however, that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has endorsed your opponent, Congressman Gil Gutknecht, for his support of small business issues,” Kennedy continued.
The letter was unearthed by Minnesota outlet Alpha News last week, after the controversy gained traction locally in 2006.
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The Post Bulletin, a Minnesota newspaper based in Rochester, reported in 2006 that Walz’s congressional campaign updated its website to reflect Walz did not win a Nebraska Chamber of Commerce award, but had won an award from the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce, known as the Jaycees. The then-campaign manager passed off the issue as a “typographical error,” the outlet reported at the time.
When approached by Fox Digital about the 2006 controversy, the Harris-Walz campaign said Walz frequently speaks “openly and off the cuff.”
“Governor Walz speaks the way real people speak – openly and off the cuff. The American people appreciate that Gov. Walz tells it like it is and doesn’t talk like a politician, and they appreciate the difference between someone who occasionally misspeaks and a pathological liar like Donald Trump,” the campaign said.
Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, hold a campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Aug. 20, 2024. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
The claim follows a long history of people accusing Walz of misrepresenting himself and his history, most notably a bevy of veterans accusing the Gopher State Democrat of misrepresenting his military career.
Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring in 2005, when he launched a successful congressional campaign and served as a member of the U.S. House representing Minnesota from 2007 until 2019.
Following Vice President Kamala Harris naming him as her running mate, Walz has been slammed by a number of veterans for allegedly misrepresenting his service in the military, including identifying himself to the public as a retired “Command Sergeant Major.”
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Walz was promoted to the command sergeant major rank following a deployment to Italy in 2004, but he did not complete coursework with the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy to retain the rank in retirement. Walz instead retired as a master sergeant, one pay grade below command sergeant major.
“For 20 years, they let this guy go by with a lie that he deployed to Iraq, which he didn’t, and that he retired as a command sergeant major, which he did not. I mean, that’s just blatant lies,” Republican Virginia Senate candidate Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain, told The New York Post this month of Walz.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz speaks during a campaign rally at Temple University on Aug. 6, 2024, in Philadelphia. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The battalion commander of Walz’s former Minnesota Army National Guard unit also issued a scathing message to Harris’ running mate earlier this month regarding him portraying himself as a “retired Command Sergeant Major.”
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“He did not earn the rank or successfully complete any assignment as an E9,” John Kolb, who served as a lieutenant colonel of the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery from 2005 to 2007, wrote in a social media post this month. “It is an affront to the Noncommissioned Officer Corps that he continues to glom onto the title. I can sit in the cockpit of an airplane, it does not make me a pilot. Similarly, when the demands of service and leadership at the highest level got real, he chose another path.”
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The “retired Command Sergeant Major” rank was promoted by the Harris campaign until earlier this month, when it changed Walz’s biography on the campaign’s website to read that he “served as a command sergeant major.”
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