BREAKING: Tim Sheehy Failed to Follow Pentagon Requirement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, September 6, 2024

CONTACT
rehm@mtdems.org

The Department of Defense found “no record” of Sheehy submitting his book for review for information that could be damaging for national security
 

Helena, MT – New reporting from The Guardian revealed that Tim Sheehy did not submit his book, Mudslingers, to the Department of Defense for proper vetting and review, which is necessary “to ensure information damaging to the national security is not inadvertently disclosed.”

Sheehy, who recounts various stories about his time as a Navy SEAL in his book, “failed to follow Pentagon rules” required of all military service members wishing to publicize information about their time in service. 

Reporting also noted that Sheehy’s explanation for leaving the military appears to be “a version of events that does not match his own words on the campaign trail.” 

Read more below for the latest in Sheehy’s “stream of controversies.” 

The Guardian: Trump-backed Senate candidate’s Navy Seal stories not cleared by Pentagon
September 6, 2024
Martin Pengelly

• Tim Sheehy, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Montana, a race that could decide control of the chamber, appears to have failed to follow Pentagon rules for clearing portions of his autobiography about his time as a US navy Seal, documents obtained by the Guardian show.
   

• Responding to freedom of information requests, officials with the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR) said that after “thorough searches of the electronic records and files”, they found no record of Sheehy submitting a DD 1910 form, required for all such projects, or any communications at all concerning review and approval of Mudslingers, the book Sheehy published with Permuted Press last year.
   

• “We believe that search methods were appropriate and could reasonably be expected to produce the requested records if they existed,” the DOPSR officials wrote.
   

• Sheehy [...] has attracted a stream of controversies, with subjects including his claims about his Minnesota childhood; his business affairs; his characterizations of his military career and wounds; rightwing thinktank links; misogynistic and racist social media posts; and derogatory remarks about Native Americans. Even his book has attracted controversy, over how its proceeds are divided.
   

• But the book also describes Sheehy’s time at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; his special forces training; and his career with the Seals, which included tours to Iraq and Afghanistan.
   

• On the page, Sheehy says that injury, disillusionment over military personnel policies and an unwelcome desk job offer led him to choose to end his military career – a version of events that does not match his own words on the campaign trail, including telling voters he had been “discharged” owing to wounds sustained on duty.
   

• Sheehy has also faced questions over his changing accounts of how he was shot in the arm, why he did not report it at the time, and what he said to a park ranger about the wound when, in 2015, he was cited for illegally discharging a weapon in a national park.
   

• Mudslinger runs to 325 pages. Sheehy’s time in the military takes up just 25. Nonetheless, Sheehy’s apparent lack of official Pentagon clearance may now add to his list of campaign controversies.
   

• Such reviews are necessary, DOPSR says, “to ensure information damaging to the national security is not inadvertently disclosed”.
   

• A spokesperson for Sheehy did not respond to a request for comment about his book and the Pentagon review process.

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