Tim Walz's 2006 campaign team misrepresented his 1995 drunk driving arrest

CNN
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When Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz first ran for Congress in 2006, his campaign repeatedly misrepresented the details of his 1995 arrest for drunkenness and reckless driving.

According to court and police records from the incident, Walz admitted in court that he had been drinking when he was pulled over in Nebraska for driving 96 mph in a 55 mph zone. Walz was then taken by a police officer to a local hospital where a blood test was administered, which revealed he had a blood alcohol level of .128, well over the legal limit of .1.

But in 2006, his campaign repeatedly assured the press that he had not been drinking that night, claiming that his failure on the sobriety test was due to a misunderstanding related to hearing loss he suffered while serving in the National Guard. The campaign also claimed that Walz was allowed to drive himself to prison that night.

None of this was true.

A review of the Walz campaign's statements at the time by CNN KFile reveals numerous discrepancies between the campaign's description of events and the facts that actually occurred that night.

“The DUI charge was dropped for one reason: It wasn't true,” Walz's then-communications director for the 2006 campaign told local news. “The cop had him drive to the station and then drive away on his own after he got there. Tim feels bad about his speeding and paid the ticket and apologized to his family at the time.”

In fact, the police report on the incident clearly states that after his arrest, Walz was taken by police to a local hospital to perform a blood alcohol test. And this week, Nebraska State Police confirmed to CNN that Walz was taken to jail by a police officer.

“Under NSP procedure, a person suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol is prohibited from driving,” Cody Thomas, a spokesman for the Nebraska State Patrol, told CNN. “In this case, the suspect was transported by the trooper and booked into the Dawes County Jail.”

Now that Walz is the Democratic nominee for vice president, the details of his 1995 arrest and the way his campaign described the incident a decade later as he launched his political career are being scrutinized again.

Walz has since confirmed the facts of the case and admitted that he drove while drunk during his campaign for governor of Minnesota in 2018.

On Tuesday, the Daily Beast published an interview with the police officer who arrested Walz, who disputed claims that Walz had not been drinking and noted that the sobriety test had nothing to do with hearing.

The Harris-Walz campaign team declined to comment for this article.

On the night of September 23, 1995, Walz, then a 31-year-old high school teacher, was pulled over by a Nebraska state trooper for speeding after radar recorded him going 96 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone. According to the police report, the trooper detected a strong odor of alcohol on Walz's breath and asked him to take a sobriety test.

Walz failed the test and was taken by a police officer to the local hospital, where a blood test revealed that he had a blood alcohol level of 0.128 – well above the legal limit of 0.1 at the time.

According to court documents, Walz took a plea deal and pleaded guilty to reckless driving. At a March 1996 court hearing, Walz admitted that he had driven while intoxicated.
His lawyer said Walz wanted to use the incident to educate his students about the dangers of drinking and driving.

“It's just a dangerous situation,” Walz said in a court transcript uncovered by Alpha News, a conservative Minnesota media outlet, in 2022. “Not just for me, but for others who don't even have anything to do with it.”

In court, Walz's defense attorney said that when the police officer began to pursue him, Walz believed someone was following him and, fearing he was being followed, sped up until the police officer turned on his blue lights.

Walz's lawyer added that he reported the incident to his school and gave up extracurricular activities such as coaching. He offered to quit his teaching job altogether, his lawyer said, but the school's principal urged him to stay.

A CNN KFile analysis of statements made to various local newspapers shows that Walz's congressional campaign team presented a completely different version of events in numerous statements in 2006.

This year, Walz ran for a congressional seat in the Republican-dominated district for the first time.

Then, in early September, a local Republican blog published the story “Walz in Jail for DUI,” based on a copy of Walz's speeding and DUI tickets.

Walz's campaign team denied that he was drunk – and claimed that he drove himself to the station. Whether Walz was arrested or not was not mentioned.

The local GOP blog later posted a copy of the police report on the incident to suggest that Walz's campaign was lying when they said he wasn't drunk. But no one in the local press seemed to follow up on the report.

Walz's campaign communications director at the time did not respond to CNN's request for comment.

In another comment to a local newspaper, archived online by the liberal blog Daily Kos, Walz's campaign team said he denied being drunk.

“According to Walz's campaign team, Walz denies being drunk the night of the incident. Walz was hard of hearing due to his years as an artilleryman in the Army National Guard and had trouble hearing the officer, according to Meredith Salsbery, Walz campaign communications director,” said the report in the New Ulm Journal, a local newspaper.

“He couldn't understand what the officer was telling him during the breathalyzer test, and the officer refused to say anything,” Salsbery said at the time.

“The DUI charge was dropped for a reason,” Salsbery added. “The judge wouldn't have dropped it if there was something to it. Tim drove to the police station that night (after being pulled over) and drove home afterward. I don't think the officer would have allowed that if he thought there was a problem.”

His campaign manager told a similar story to another local newspaper.

“Walz's campaign manager, Kerry Greeley, did not deny that Walz was speeding when he was pulled over that night, but she said Walz was not drunk. She attributed the misunderstanding to Walz's deafness, a condition that stems from his years of service as an artilleryman in the Army National Guard,” a Post Bulletin article said.

“He couldn’t understand what the officer was saying to him,” Greeley said.

“She said deaf people can also have balance problems. The judge ultimately dropped the drunken driving charge against Walz and reprimanded the officer for failing to recognize that Walz was deaf, Greeley said,” the report continued.

“He was caught speeding, he doesn't deny it and that's the end of it,” she added to the Star Tribune.

Greeley did not respond to CNN's request for comment.

As his political career progressed, Walz increasingly formulated his explanations for his arrest in 1995.

In 2018, when he ran for governor, Walz presented a significantly different version of events.

According to Walz, the arrest was a life-changing moment that motivated him to change his behavior. He said he has since turned his back on alcohol and his favorite drink is now Diet Mountain Dew.

“You have responsibilities to others,” Gwen Walz once told her husband. “You cannot afford to make stupid decisions.”