Gov. Tim Walz Called Out for Another Past Embellishment

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Minnesota Democrat Gov. Tim Walz has been found to be on the wrong side of history again, as another report has resurfaced about a 2006 campaign website embellishment.

Walz, already embroiled in vice presidential campaign controversy for his post-service National Guard title and for claiming he carried a weapon of war in the war on terror but serving only in Europe, is now being called out again for reportedly falsely claiming to have received a Nebraska Chamber of Commerce award before his 2006 House campaign.

“The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce had to write a letter to Tim Walz’s Congressional campaign to remove an award he never received from them,” Minnesota journalist Dustin Grage posted Saturday on X.

“Going on to clarify that the Chamber had endorsed his opponent. Is there anything Tim Walz hasn’t lied about?”

The award Walz’s campaign website referenced in 2006 was from the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce and not the official Nebraska Chamber of Commerce.

The error was scrubbed from his website in 2006, admittedly due to a “typographical error,” the Post Bulletin reported in November 2006. The Post Bulletin is a Rochester, Minnesota, newspaper that covered the congressional campaign of then-incumbent Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn.

Barry L. Kennedy, who was the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce president, discovered the error and wrote a letter to Walz’s campaign.

“We researched this matter and can confirm that you have not been the recipient of any award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce,” Kennedy wrote Nov. 1, 2006.

“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.”

The Harris-Walz campaign explained the error away as speaking “off the cuff,” although that error was on the internet, and pivoted to calling Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump a “pathological liar” without evidence.

“Gov. Walz speaks the way real people speak: openly and off the cuff,” the Harris-Walz campaign told Fox Digital, when asked about another controversy of a past embellishment, the New York Post reported Sunday.

“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.”

Walz has been accused of “stolen valor” for claiming to be a retired “command sergeant major.” While that was a title he held before he left the service to run for Congress, Walz never officially earned the title of being a retired command sergeant major because he did not complete the requirements to retain that title.

Republicans and U.S. veterans also note Walz left his post just before his unit would ultimately be assigned for duty in Iraq. Walz’s official retirement title was downgraded to “master sergeant.”

“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,” Republican Virginia Senate candidate Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain endorsed by Trump, told the Post earlier this month.

“I mean, that’s just blatant lies.”