ICYMI: Pennsylvania GOP Senate candidate repeats false claim that he served as an Army Ranger [The American Independent]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The American Independent: Pennsylvania GOP Senate candidate repeats false claim that he served as an Army Ranger
By Josh Israel
March 31, 2022

Key Points:

• Republican Dave McCormick has been touting himself as a former “Army Ranger” in his Senate primary. But the Connecticut-based hedge fund CEO turned Pennsylvania candidate never earned that title.

• At a March 14 meet-and-greet event in Grove City, Pennsylvania, McCormick told voters… “I was a Ranger and I served in the 82nd Airborne Division, which is one of the great divisions in our country.”

• He repeated a nearly identical line at a March 5 campaign appearance in Edinboro, Pennsylvania.

• McCormick also referred to himself as “a paratrooper and a Ranger” in a Feb. 15 interview on the Mark Levin Show.

• In 2019, the website for the hedge fund McCormick ran posted a Financial Times story with the title, “Former US Ranger Ready to Take Command at Bridgewater.” The piece identifies him twice as an “Army Ranger” and still appeared on the site as of Thursday.

• The Army’s Special Operations Command holds that only military members who serve or served in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment can call themselves a “U.S. Army Ranger.” While McCormick never served in the 75th, he did complete the Army’s Ranger Course training program in 1988. That would only entitle McCormick to say he was “Ranger qualified,” according to U.S. military standards.

• In recent years, media fact-checkers have repeatedly criticized other candidates for using the term “Army Ranger” without having earned the title.

• Since joining the campaign, McCormick has also made news over his record of outsourcing jobs and for touting the endorsement of Sean Parnell, McCormick’s former primary opponent who dropped out of the GOP race in November after he lost custody of his three children amid domestic abuse allegations.

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