South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg wants to be your president. Anyone can run for president, but when you tell obvious, verifiable lies, you're gonna have a problem.
And that is where Pete Buttigieg is right now, lying about his military career.
Perhaps the most telling evidence against Buttigieg's veracity is a series of photos he has released of his "time" in Afghanistan. They lead this article. Any combat veteran will take one look at those photos and recognize he's a liar.
First, look at the gun. It is not set up with military sights, and though it is the M-4 he claims to have carried, the Navy did not issue M-4s when he was supposedly deployed. Next, his helmet is hanging from his forearm. When you're in a combat zone, carrying a weapon, you are never without your helmet squarely on your head.
But the greatest evidence? Look at his sunglasses. Closely.
In the reflection pictured, you see his photographer, a car and a parking lot. The photo was staged stateside, probably at his Navy Reserve armory.
I can say unequivocally and without fear of contradiction, that Pete Buttigieg is a fraud.
According to Department of the Navy documents, Buttigieg served in the Afghanistan Threat Finance Cell (ATFC) in Kabul, placing him in “an imminent danger pay area” from late March to mid-September 2014, while the then-32-year old was still serving his first term as mayor.
The ATFC “identifies and disrupts Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other insurgent financial support networks in Afghanistan.”
Buttigieg represented ATFC at “high level briefings,” the documents say, and “coordinated intelligence sharing and targeting deconfliction” methods with multiple organizations.
In an appearance in New Hampshire two weeks ago, Buttigieg spoke of the 119 times he claims to have "crossed outside the wire,” leaving the relative safety of the base as a vehicle commander on convoy security detail in dangerous parts of Kabul.
“We learned what it is to trust one another with our lives,” Buttigieg said in his presidential launch speech.
The documents do not say anything about Buttigieg going outside the wire, but military officials who reviewed the documents for ACV Reports note that he likely did not engage in direct combat, which would have earned him a Navy combat ribbon.
Buttigieg has not claimed to have been involved in direct combat, but he has written at length about the dangers he faced in the unpredictable environs in downtown Kabul, where stops at checkpoints or encounters on the street could turn deadly.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson took aim last week at Buttigieg by questioning the candidate’s military credentials. The conservative commentator and host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” cast doubt about the candidate’s service overseas during the February 19 episode of his prime-time opinion program.
“In 2009, he joined the Naval Reserves. Five years later he did a tour in Afghanistan. Buttigieg was now officially a veteran, and he never stopped reminding you of it,” Carlson said prior to playing a clip of the candidate discussing his deployment.
“You really get the impression Buttigieg spent his time in Afghanistan stringing Taliban ears onto necklaces. As he told Beto O’Rourke at one of the Democratic debates, ‘I don’t need lessons from you on courage.’ Ugh. Who talks like that? Not people who’ve actually been there, that’s for sure. Phonies talk like that. And Buttigieg is nothing, if not a phony,” Mr. Carlson continued before calling Mr. Buttigieg a “transparent fraud.”
Buttigieg took a leave of absence during his first term in office to deploy to Afghanistan, according to his campaign website.
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