GOP Candidate Repeatedly Inflated Record on Bronze Star

Nevada congressional hopeful David Flippo really did earn a Bronze Star — just not the kind he's been touting. The retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and President Trump-backed Republican has repeatedly described himself in campaign materials as having received a Bronze Star "for valor," a higher-level version that recognizes heroism in direct combat. Records show his 2004 award was the much more common Bronze Star for meritorious service, not combat valor, the Washington Post reports.

Flippo's campaign scrubbed a three-year-old launch video after questions from the Post. He blamed the language on "honest mistakes" by video editors, saying they may have conflated the Bronze Star with his Outstanding Unit Award with Valor award. His campaign blamed the more recent mistakes in fundraising emails on copywriters "accidentally using old talking points." Military awards experts aren't buying the excuses for the embellishments.

• Leading awards expert Doug Sterner, who received two Bronze Stars for his service in Vietnam, tells the Post that the mistake is "a big deal." "It's pretty sad that this is a multiple-time thing," Sterner says. "It shows a pattern of deception. It is someone trying to give an impression of their service that is not true." Sterner and his wife, Pam, pushed for 2006's Stolen Valor Act, which was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2012.

Flippo is running in Nevada's 2nd District, where Trump's endorsement helped him win a crowded primary, but outgoing GOP Rep. Mark Amodei now says he will "absolutely not" back Flippo. "I'm not having my last action walking out the door to hug a guy who I think is a fraud," he tells the Post. State Republicans, including Gov. Joe Lombardo, are standing by the candidate. "Most Americans would consider mistaking which of your actual military decorations carried the valor distinction a pretty remarkable problem to have," state GOP chairman Michael J. McDonald said in a statement.

• The district has been represented by Republicans since it was created in 1980, but polls show that Flippo is in a tight race with Democratic nominee Teresa Benitez-Thompson, a former majority leader in the state Assembly the Las Vegas Sun reports.