The Republican Party is pulling nearly $1 million in advertising promised to its candidate for the U.S. House in Ohio’s 9th District after an Associated Press (AP) story accused him of lying about his military service.
But the records of Air Force veteran J.R. Majewski defend his combat legacy.
According to military documents he provided to The New American, Majewski deployed to a classified location shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. His level of clearance was secret.
On the other hand, AP maintains that military documents obtained through a public records request only identify time he served in Qatar. The files “indicate Majewski never deployed to Afghanistan but instead completed a six-month stint helping to load planes at an air base in Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally that is a safe distance from the fighting.”
Majewski explained to The New American that his mission to Afghanistan was classified; hence, “there will be no records” that media could obtain through a public request. However, during a Friday press conference in Holland, Ohio, he pointed out that he provided his personal military documentation and photographic proofs to AP in July. He believes the fact that military absentee ballots are scheduled to be mailed near the end of September accounts for AP’s two-month delay in publishing its investigation. Had the media outlet acted sooner, he would have had time to properly respond.
Instead of contacting him to verify AP’s story, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) announced to the media its intent to pull support from Majewski’s campaign, he told The New American. The congressional hopeful found out NRCC’s plans from a tweet they sent him following their public announcement. NRCC has not responded to The New American‘s request for comment.
The move comes just weeks before the 2022 midterm elections, interrupting an ad campaign Majewski had planned. Pundits speculate that the funding withdrawal jeopardizes his otherwise promising chances against longtime Democratic incumbent Marcy Kaptur, who has held Ohio’s 9th District seat since 1983 and is the longest-serving female representative in the U.S. House.
Politico says the GOP is “essentially walking away from what could have been an easy pickup for the party,” Majewski having defeated two state legislators in May’s primary. Moreover, CNN reports that recent redistricting created a “much more conservative 9th district that Trump would have won.”
Donald Trump endorsed Majewski in June. A source close to the campaign told The New American that the former president is now in contact with NRCC, asking them to reverse their decision since it was based on a false report.
Majewski held a press conference Friday to address what he called AP’s “politically motivated hit piece.”
A liberal journalist has an agenda, and has put my life, my family’s life and the lives of my team at risk by publishing blatantly false stories about me. Let me be clear: Anyone insinuating that I did not serve in Afghanistan is lying. I served my, and our, United States of America across multiple countries, in many roles, but that didn’t matter to a liberal media, who wrote a politically motivated hit piece on me on Tuesday. The story has been published, and the damage has been damning.
An inquiry was made for my military records and was received by the Associated Press in July. The inquiry states: “We show one deployment to Qatar from May 2002 to November 2002. What he did or where he may have went from that location, we do not have visibility on.” In fact, the orders and the military records that I have been able to obtain from my personal files shows that all of my deployments are listed as classified.
This was strategically placed to crush me and defame me with a fake hit piece. These enemies of the truth did not bother to publish that. The Air Force has explicitly stated: “There is no way for us to verify whether or not J.R. Majewski served in Afghanistan during his deployment time frame in Qatar.”
To be clear, the hatchet job yesterday was a deceitful smear. I anticipate that my opponent will attempt to perpetuate this smear because she is desperate. Mark my words: the people of Ohio’s 9th District will see through these lies. They are ready to retire Marcy Kaptur and elect a common-sense conservative.
I’ll say it again. I flew into combat zones often — specifically in Afghanistan — and I served my country proudly. Marcy Kaptur and the Associated Press, you are a disgrace to veterans who served this country. I demand a public apology. I served my country proudly, like thousands of other service members. And I’ll leave you with this: The fact that they were so quick to call me a liar is proof positive of how out-of-touch Marcy Kaptur is with veterans in this district, and the great trials and struggles of those who serve this great nation.
While the Associated Press was able to get documents on my record and mischaracterize them, veterans like myself have to wait months to get the facts and deal with a broken system. That’s why the first day in Congress I am going to work on streamlining these processes and end the red-tape for veterans once and for all. Also, I’ll work with my colleagues to introduce legislation that would make it a crime to besmirch veterans, and end this nonsense once and for all. If you do not have all the facts, you should have no right to hurt those who served our country, and their loved ones, and I might consider suing the reporters from the Associated Press.
Majewski went on to field questions about his 2002 service in Afghanistan, explaining that classified locations such as that would by definition be excluded from records. He complained that AP published his private military (DD-214) paperwork without his permission. In fact, he says he shared it with them in July on condition of confidentiality.
One skeptic mentioned that Majewski is not a recipient of the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, available to any member of the U.S. military who served there. “I got out of the Air Force honorably, prior to the campaign medal being awarded. I did not request my DD-214 be updated,” he explained, which would have added the medal to his military record. “I have the right to do so. However, this accusation came with very little time to do that.”
Regardless, another reporter pointed out that the U.S. military considers countries like Qatar and Yemen to be combat zones. Per executive orders 12744 and 13239, anyone serving in those places would be considered a combat veteran. And despite AP’s flippancy over service members’ tours of duty in such areas, they indeed face dangers. Consider the 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen, an attack that claimed the lives of 17 sailors and injured 40 other crew members.
Others wondered why Majewski does not ask fellow military members who served with him in Afghanistan to vouch for his story. Melissa Pelletier, director of communications for his campaign, told The New American that Majewski is not willing to expose them to the kind of backlash and dangers that he and his family have had to face in recent months. Since beginning his campaign, his life as well as the lives of his wife and staff have been threatened. “He has a legacy of protecting and defending veterans,” Pelletier said. “He signed up for this [campaign], so he accepts the dangers. But he is not going to allow the media to put his fellow servicemen at such risks.”
