OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
1:34 PM – Friday, August 16, 2024
Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s Democrat nominee for vice president, made a number of false claims during his campaign in 2006 regarding the specifics of his 1995 arrest for intoxicated and reckless driving.
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Walz later admitted in court that he had been drinking alcohol when he was pulled over for speeding 96 mph in a 55 mph zone in Nebraska, according to court and police records related to the incident. Walz was driven by a state trooper to a nearby hospital for a blood test, which revealed that his blood alcohol level was .128—much higher than the state’s then-lawful limit of 0.1.
However, in 2006, his campaign told the media on multiple occasions that he had not drank any alcohol that night and that the reason he failed the field sobriety test was because of a misunderstanding related to his alleged “hearing loss from his National Guard service.” Additionally, the campaign boldly claimed that Walz was permitted to drive himself to jail that night after being pulled over.
Except, none of that was true.
There are many discrepancies between the congressional campaign’s account of what happened that night and the facts, according to a CNN KFile analysis of statements made by the Walz campaign at the time.
“The DUI charge was dropped for a Reason: it wasn’t true,” Walz’s then-campaign communications director told the press in 2006. “The trooper had him drive to the station and then leave on his own after being at the station. Tim feels bad about speeding and has paid the ticket and apologized to his family at the time it happened.”
In reality, it is evident from the police report on the incident that Walz was taken by authorities to a nearby hospital for a blood alcohol test subsequent to his arrest. Additionally, Walz was brought to jail by a state trooper, as reported by Nebraska state police this week.
“Under NSP procedure, a person suspected of impaired driving is not allowed to continue driving,” stated Cody Thomas, a spokesman for the Nebraska State Patrol. “In this case, the suspect was transported by the trooper and was lodged in Dawes County Jail.”
With Walz emerging as the Democrat nominee for vice president, attention is once again focused on the specifics of his arrest in 1995 and the way his campaign presented the event when he began his political career ten years later.
Nevertheless, Walz has now admitted the case’s facts, saying that he had been drinking and driving that night.
The state trooper who detained Walz was interviewed by the left-wing outlet Daily Beast on Tuesday. In the interview, he refuted false claims regarding how Walz had not consumed alcohol and pointed out that a sobriety test has no bearing on bad hearing, if he was even telling the truth about that.
Walz claims that his hearing loss issues have not been an issue in recent years since having surgery.
“According to Walz’s campaign staff, Walz denies being drunk the night of the incident. Walz was hard of hearing, a result of his years as an artillery soldier in the Army National Guard, and had trouble hearing the trooper, according to Meredith Salsbery, communications director for the Walz campaign,” according to a report in the New Ulm Journal, an outlet in Minnesota.
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