Posted: August 7, 2012 at 7:17 am
Questions Raised Over Chair of Anti-Obama PAC
A new report is out this week with the news that a Montana Republican who started an anti-Obama military-themed PAC is under fire for leaving the SEALs after questions about “improprieties” surrounding his Defense Department travel claims.
Ryan Zinke, a former state legislator, had run as the Lt. Gov candidate under international prostitute guide-book author Neil Livingstone, who became somewhat of an internet joke. The team was unsuccessful in securing the GOP nomination.
According to this article, former military officials say that:
Zinke left the Navy SEALs acrimoniously after being accused of improprieties surrounding his travel reports in the late ‘90s.
“There were ethics issues around his travel,” a former Navy SEAL and senior Defense Department official told BuzzFeed. “He was using government travel to visit his home in Montana. He got caught. That’s why he left the SEALs.”
Zinke did not contest the allegation, but suggested that the travel dispute is hardly major a blot on his service record.
In response, Mr. Zinke said:
“I was younger,” he says, referring to his time on SEAL Team Six. “It was a wild team. We trained hard, we ran hard, we were hard.”
Not sure what to make of Zinke’s comment that “we were hard,” so lets move on to the rest of his response.
Mr. Zinke says his travel to Montana was official business because he was trying to make Montana a training site for SEAL Team Six. To be sure, the article asserts that “By all public accounts, Zinke, a 23-year SEAL veteran, had a distinguished career.”
What there doesn’t seem to be a public account of is Mr. Zinke’s work to bring SEAL training to Montana. Not online, not during his time in the state legislature, and not during his campaign for Lt. Governor was the suggestion featured. Nor does their appear to be any reference to the plan in any of the gazillion media interviews Mr. Zinke gave after it was revealed that President Obama had used SEAL Team Six to kill Osama bid Laden.
Well, perhaps that is why that effort never really panned out. It’s looking like this PAC will go the same route.
