Walz faced another accusation of misrepresentation in a scathing, uncovered letter: “remove any reference”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz faces another accusation of misrepresenting his record after a 2006 Nebraska Chamber of Commerce letter resurfaced amid Walz’s vice presidential campaign.

When Walz first ran for Congress in Minnesota, he touted on his campaign website that he had received an award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce in 1993 for his work with the business community, according to a 2006 Post Bulletin article.

However, he never received such an award, which was announced to him in a harsh letter from then-President of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, Barry L. Kennedy.

“We have investigated this matter and can confirm that you have not received any awards from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce,” reads the letter to Walz dated Nov. 1, 2006.

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“I am not going to draw any conclusions about your intentions by including this line in your bio. However, we respectfully request that you remove any reference to our organization as it could be viewed as an endorsement of your candidacy. However, it should be noted that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has endorsed your opponent, Congressman Gil Gutknecht, for his support of small business issues,” Kennedy continued.

The letter was discovered by Minnesota outlet Alpha News last week, after the controversy gained traction locally in 2006.

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In 2006, the Rochester-based Minnesota newspaper The Post Bulletin reported that Walz’s congressional campaign updated its website to reflect that Walz had not won an award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, but rather an award from the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce, known as the Jaycees. The then-campaign manager called the matter a “typo,” the outlet reported at the time.

When contacted by Fox Digital about the 2006 controversy, the Harris-Walz campaign said Walz frequently speaks “outspokenly and without a second thought.”

“Governor Walz speaks the way real people speak: openly and without thought. The American people appreciate that Governor Walz tells it like it is and doesn’t talk like a politician, and they appreciate the difference between someone who occasionally misspoke and a pathological liar like Donald Trump,” the campaign said.

The lawsuit follows a long history of people accusing Walz of misrepresenting their identity and history, in particular a group of veterans who accuse the Gopher State Democrat of misrepresenting his military career.

Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring in 2005, when he launched a successful campaign for Congress and served as a member of the United States House of Representatives representing Minnesota From 2007 to 2019.

After Vice President Kamala Harris named him as her running mate, Walz came under fire from several veterans for allegedly misrepresenting his service in the military, even identifying himself to the public as a retired “command sergeant major.”

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Walz was promoted to the rank of command sergeant major after a deployment to Italy in 2004, but did not complete the courses with the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy To retain his rank in retirement, Walz retired as a master sergeant, one pay grade below command sergeant major.

“For 20 years, they allowed this guy to go on with the lie that he had been deployed to Iraq, which he didn’t, and that he had retired as a command sergeant major, which he didn’t. I mean, these are outright lies,” Virginia Republican Senate candidate Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain, told the New York Post this month, referring to Walz.

The battalion commander of Walz’s former Minnesota Army National Guard unit also issued a scathing message to Harris’ running mate earlier this month regarding his portrayal as a “retired command sergeant major.”

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“He did not earn the rank nor successfully complete any missions as an E9,” wrote John Kolb, who served as lieutenant colonel of the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery Regiment from 2005 to 2007, in a social media post this month. “It is an affront to the NCO Corps that he continues to hold on to the title. I can sit in the cockpit of an airplane, but that does not make me a pilot. Similarly, when the demands of service and leadership at the highest level became real, he chose another path.”

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The rank of “Retired Command Sergeant Major” was Promoted by Harris campaign until earlier this month, when he changed Walz’s biography on the campaign website to say he “served as a command sergeant major.”

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