Herschel Walker’s background has received a fair amount of scrutiny in recent months, and for good reason. The Georgia Republican is running for the U.S. Senate despite having no meaningful background in government or public service, which makes scrutinizing his record all the more important.
The problem for Walker, however, is that the closer one looks at his personal and professional experiences, the less credible his first-time candidacy appears. The Associated Press reported over the weekend, for example, on the latest in a series trouble areas: Walker has taken credit for creating a program called Patriot Support that provided support to veterans struggling with mental health.
But corporate documents, court records and Senate disclosures reviewed by The Associated Press tell a more complicated story. Together they present a portrait of a celebrity spokesman who overstated his role in a for-profit program that is alleged to have preyed upon veterans and service members while defrauding the government.
Eight years ago, Walker competed as a celebrity contestant on a game show, and he won a $50,000 prize to donate to his charity of choice. He picked Patriot Support, the program he claimed to help create.
In reality, Walker didn’t help create it — he was a paid celebrity spokesperson — and it was not (and is not) a charity. It was a program created years earlier by Universal Health Services, which paid the former football player a salary of $331,000 last year.
Complicating...
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