A former Park Service ranger said Friday that the U.S Senate candidate Tim Sheehy Montana’s president lied about a gunshot wound that the candidate said came from fighting in Afghanistan – going public with an allegation that has dogged the Republican’s campaign for months.
Former Ranger Kim Peach’s claim that Sheehy actually shot himself on a family trip in Montana was immediately dismissed by Sheehy and his allies as a smear campaign orchestrated by Democrats in a race designed to help decide Control of the Senate.
But with the election less than three weeks away, it adds to the intense pressure the political newcomer has already faced as he challenges three-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.
Sheehy is a former US Navy SEAL and his military career is central to his bid for office. During his speeches and in a book published last year by Sheehy, he reports that he was injured multiple times in combat, including in the arm in 2012.
Sheehy was awarded the Purple Heart and also the Bronze Star for wounds sustained in a separate combat incident.
A Sheehy campaign spokesman said Peach is a partisan Democrat who promotes a “slanderous story.”
“Anyone who tries to deny the fact that Tim Sheehy went to 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 just.” “A disgusting person,” said spokeswoman Katie Martin.
He has been under investigation for the arm injury since April, when The Washington Post quoted an anonymous Glacier National Park ranger saying Sheehy accidentally shot himself in 2015 while traveling with his family and his gun fell from a vehicle and fired, when she met him on the ground in a parking lot at Logan Pass. The ranger quoted in the story was Peach.
Sheehy was cited by Peach and paid a $525 fine for illegally discharging a firearm in Glacier, government records show.
The Republican candidate responded to the April report that he had lied to the park ranger – not about being wounded in Afghanistan.
Sheehy said he fell while hiking at Glacier and injured his arm. He then made up the story about the gunshot wound to cover up the fact that the 2012 incident may have been friendly fire. He said he didn’t want members of his SEAL unit in Afghanistan to face consequences.
With mail-in voting underway in Montana and Sheehy awaiting a possible victory, Peach, a Democrat, said Friday that he “can’t let something like this pass without telling the truth.”
Peach said he interviewed Sheehy at the hospital, where he was being treated for the gunshot wound.
“He was obviously embarrassed at the time. And you know, he admitted why I was there — the shooting in the park,” Peach told The Associated Press. “He knows the truth and the truth is not complicated. When you start lying, things get complicated.”
The Post had previously reported on his decision to go public.
Peach worked as a park ranger for more than three decades and is now retired. He lives in a small town near Glacier. He posted a photo of himself on social media wearing a “Make America Wrong Again” hat and said he was voting Democratic.
He denied any connection to the Tester campaign or other Democratic organizations.
Tester’s campaign has run ads in recent weeks criticizing Sheehy for lying about the gunshot wound. A campaign spokesman had no immediate comment Friday.
The Montana Democratic Party used Peach’s recent comments as a “first-hand account” of what happened to Sheehy.
However, Mike Berg, communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, dismissed the latest repetition of allegations against Sheehy. He suggested this was a sign of desperation from Democrats who feared Tester would lose.
“It is the last breath of a career politician who sees the end of his career,” said Berg.