BREAKING: Tim Sheehy Doctored TV Ad to Hide his Anti-Public Lands Ties

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, September 16, 2024

CONTACT
rehm@mtdems.org

In recent TV ad, Sheehy’s campaign edited his shirt to remove the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) logo and obscure his involvement from Montana voters
 

Helena, MT – New reporting from HuffPost revealed the latest in Tim Sheehy’s shady efforts to hide his support for transferring public lands. 

In a recent TV ad, Sheehy removed the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) logo on his shirt. PERC has a history of advocating for privatizing and selling off public lands – and Sheehy has obscured his involvement with the group before, when he failed to disclose that he was one of their board members.

Now, that cover-up has extended to Sheehy’s own campaign ads. As a digital forensics expert told HuffPost, “it is more likely than not that this video was manipulated.” 

Read more below. 

HuffPost: It Sure Looks Like This GOP Senate Hopeful Doctored One Of His Campaign Ads
September 16, 2024
Chris D’Angelo

• The campaign of Montana GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy appears to have doctored a recent TV advertisement to remove a logo of the Property and Environment Research Center from the shirt he was wearing.
   

• PERC is a Montana-based think tank with a history of advocating for the privatization of federal public lands, which has become a central issue in the race.
   

• Earlier this month, Sheehy’s campaign sent out public land-focused mailers to Montana voters. The mailer features a picture of Sheehy sitting at a campsite with his family and wearing a flannel shirt with the PERC logo clearly visible on one sleeve.
   

• [An] X user pointed to a TV advertisement that Sheehy released last week and that was filmed at the same time and location as the photo on the mailer. Sheehy is wearing the same shirt but the PERC logo is missing.
   

• A close inspection revealed that it isn’t the mailer that was doctored but likely the TV ad.
   

• In the ad [...] on his sleeve where the PERC logo should be, the stripes of his shirt appear broken and the colors mixed, each a telltale sign of editing.
   

• HuffPost sent the still image, the TV ad and other Sheehy campaign material to Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley.
   

• “In the two places where you can clearly see his right shoulder, the stripes on the shirt are misaligned,” he said of the ad. “In addition, at the 00:15 second mark, you can see a slight slippage of a region on the right shoulder where what looks like a copy-paste manipulation to conceal the logo moved differently than the arm. While this is not the most compelling evidence of manipulation, given the other video you shared and the still image, I think it is more likely than not that this video was manipulated.”
   

• Sheehy’s camp wasn’t consistent in editing the PERC logo out of its material.
   

• Footage from the same outdoor shoot appears in a pair of public land-focused TV ads. In one, released last month, the PERC logo ― a green pine tree above the letters PERC ― is clearly visible on his shirt.
   

• As HuffPost first reported in June, Sheehy failed to include his post on PERC’s board in his Senate financial disclosure, a violation of Senate rules. Since its founding in 1980, the Bozeman-based nonprofit has called for privatizing federal lands, including national parks, and been a staunch opponent of Montana’s unique stream access laws, which provide anglers and recreationists virtually unlimited access to the state’s rivers and streams, including those that flow through private property. 
   

• The video is the latest in a fumbling, yearlong damage control effort from the campaign aimed at distancing Sheehy from his own stated support for transferring federal lands and recasting him as a public lands champion. 
   

• As HuffPost first reported, Sheehy explicitly called for federal lands to be “turned over” to states and, more recently, enlisted a Montana hunting guide who supports a state takeover of federal lands to help paint Sheehy as an opponent of federal land sales and transfers.
   

• Along with his past support for pawning off federal lands, the Montana GOP platform, adopted in June, calls specifically for the “granting of federally managed public lands to the state” — a position that numerous polls have shown a majority of residents in Montana and other states in the Mountain West oppose.
   

• Since early August, Sheehy has released two TV ads aimed at convincing voters that federal lands would be safe if he is elected to the U.S. Senate in November. One ad featured Walsh, a current PERC board member, and the other starred Stryker Anderson, a Montana hunting guide who, when contacted, told Huffpost he was under the impression Sheehy shared his view in favor of transferring federal lands to states. 
   

• It is unclear why Sheehy’s team opted to scrub PERC’s logo from his recent ad about protecting Montana values after having left it clearly visible in campaign materials related to his public lands position. But it’s hard to see it as anything more than another botched attempt to clean up the mess Sheehy created for himself on this particular issue.

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