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Wisconsin TV Stations Pull Anti-Russ Feingold Political Ad

Posted on
May 9, 2016
by Agree Staff
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is getting support in his rematch against former Sen. Russ Feingold from the Koch Brothers' PAC Freedom Partners. The group leveled a fierce blow with a tearful ad of a Tomah, Wisconsin Veterans Administration clinic whistleblower accusing Feingold of ignoring a 2009 memo outlining problems with over-prescription of opiates. Five years later a patient at the clinic died from a "fatal mixture of [prescribed] drugs," according to USA Today.

But the Feingold campaign called the ad false, and now three Wisconsin TV stations are refusing to air it.

The ad, titled "The Real Story," features Ryan Honl, the whistleblower at the center of the scandal.

Honl begins by telling his life story. With military music in the background, and photos from Iraq in his hands, he talks about how he served with the 82nd Airborne and was "medically discharged" before going to work for the VA. "Within a few days I'm seeing stuff I'm uncomfortable with," Honl recounts. "Things had been falsified there for so many years. And I couldn't take it anymore, and I blew the whistle."

After a montage of local news reports, Honl delivers the hit on Feingold: "They found out that Russ Feingold got a memo in 2009 that outlined veteran harm, and nothing was done. Russ Feingold ignored veterans' concerns while veterans were dying at the facility."

The ad shows the memo in question. Handwriting at the top reads, "Hand delivered to: Congressman Kind, Congressman Obey, Senator Feingold." A red circle is drawn around Feingold's name.

But the ad neglects to mention that none of the three elected officials say they received the memo, and the memo's author backs up their story. The memo was written by a local union official and addressed to a union colleague. The author had hoped it would be circulated to the congressmen's offices, but says she has no evidence that it was. With the Feingold campaign arguing the claim has no basis, three TV stations agreed to pull the ad.

Feingold's political consultants are not letting the VA matter rest. The campaign is running its own attack ad accusing Johnson of dropping the ball after receiving Honl's complaints.

After a narrator says "Johnson and his allies aren't telling the truth about the tragedy in Tomah ... When Johnson's office learned of the failures in Tomah, he did nothing." The kicker is Johnson's own words saying his office was distracted because they received Honl's warnings during the 2014 "election cycle ... when [staff] people are looking at doing job interviews and stuff." (Johnson says he didn't personally become aware until January 2015.)

But the Feingold campaign may not want to dwell on this topic, since Honl is now an active defender of Johnson, though he hasn't always been. After contacting Johnson and Wisconsin's other Senator Tammy Baldwin in 2014, he initially complained about their lack of response. By the spring of 2015, after media coverage of the scandal, he was praising Baldwin and Johnson for setting up a "serious independent investigation." Then in February 2016, he endorsed Johnson's re-election and slammed Baldwin, Feingold and Sen. Bernie Sanders for good measure, saying "it's politics for the Democrats."
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