Montana Senate candidate Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and one of the GOP’s star recruits for the 2024 election cycle, admitted to the Washington Post that he lied to a National Park Service ranger about being shot during a 2015 incident in the state’s Glacier National Park.
The admission comes after Sheehy, a wealthy aerospace executive who is aiming to succeed three-term Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, previously made inconsistent statements about how he was shot in the right arm.
In October 2015, Sheehy informed a ranger that he had shot himself in the right arm after his Colt .45 revolver fell to the ground and discharged, according to records filed in U.S. District Court from Montana.
According to the Post, a description of the incident contained in a federal citation said the gunshot left a bullet in Sheehy’s right arm. The written details of the citation, which was issued by the ranger, were based on Sheehy’s account of the incident.
Sheehy ended up paying a $525 fine for firing his gun in a national park, a decision that, at the time, was based on his report to the park ranger.
Asked by the Post about the ranger’s quote, Sheehy said he fabricated the shooting story to protect himself and his former platoon members from an investigation into a gunshot wound he allegedly received while he was in Afghanistan in 2012.
Sheehy told the newspaper he fell and injured himself while hiking in 2015 in Glacier National Park, leading to a hospital visit. At the hospital, he informed staff that a bullet was lodged in his arm, leading him to be questioned by the ranger.
“I guess the only thing I’m guilty of is admitting to doing something I’ve never done,” Sheehy told the Post, saying his gun never went off in the national park.
And Sheehy defended what he said was his attempt to keep his former chapter members out of any investigation. He told the Post he did not know whether his gunshot wound was the result of friendly or enemy fire.
“It was a small price to pay to make sure that a whole team of great Americans didn’t get dragged through the mud because of this,” he told the newspaper.
Although lying to a federal officer is a crime, the Post reported that the statute of limitations on the incident has expired.
Daniel Watkins, Sheehy’s attorney, said Sheehy did not prevent a law enforcement investigation because no crimes had occurred in the national park, according to the Post.
Sheehy’s admission comes as inconsistencies have mounted over how he was shot while serving in Afghanistan.
The Sheehy campaign provided an X-ray to the Post on the condition that it could be sent to experts but not published by the newspaper. A professor and longtime trauma surgeon who reviewed the X-ray told the newspaper he found it “doubtful” that Sheehy’s wound came from an assault weapon — and that it likely came from a handgun .
In Sheehy’s 2023 memoir, “Mudslingers,” he wrote that he was shot down once while serving in Afghanistan. But in another passage, he wrote that he had been shot multiple times, according to the Post.
Sheehy received the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for separate events for serving in combat overseas, and neither award is in dispute, according to the newspaper.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, Sheehy’s campaign said the GOP nominee “will never let any of this smear stop him from fighting every day as the next United States senator.”
“While Montanans respect his selfless sacrifice for our country and commend him for being a Republican running for office, the liberal elite disinformation machine will go to great lengths to question and attack him “, the press release continues.
Business Insider has reached out to the Sheehy campaign for further comment.
Sheehy is heavily favored to win the June 4 Senate primary and has been heavily touted by Washington Republicans as one of their strongest candidates yet against Tester, who for nearly two decades has weathered the odds opposing policies for Democrats in conservative-leaning Montana.
A Survey USA poll conducted in February showed Tester leading Sheehy 49 to 40 percent, while an Emerson College survey released in March showed Tester with a narrower 44 to 42 percent lead over the GOP candidate.
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