(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Montana’s GOP senatorial candidate, Tim Sheehy, called out a Washington Post journalist who attempted to badger his friends and family into participating in a smear attack, the Daily Caller reported.
Sheehy made public a voicemail transcript showing Post writer Beth Reinhard’s repeated efforts to dig up dirt, which included reaching out to an old college acquaintance and even harassing the man’s wife.
The smear artists @washingtonpost are writing yet another hit piece attacking me for serving my country—even asking questions about my medical history and demanding my personal records. I'm done playing the liberal media's game—here's how DC "reporters" treat veterans. pic.twitter.com/m59T9wXCpP
— Tim Sheehy (@SheehyforMT) April 10, 2024
Reinhard first reportedly tried to contact one of Sheehy’s former Naval Academy classmates, but after the unnamed former comrade ignored her messages, Reinhard cold-called the soldier’s wife, leaving a voicemail requesting that she call her back to provide details from Sheehy’s past.
“Hi this is Beth Reinhard I’m a reporter with the Washington Post,” Reinhard said according to the voicemail transcript before requesting more information about Sheehy.
“I’m working on a story about, profile, of Tim Sheehy, who knew your husband at the Naval Academy, and we just wanted to know, hoping to talk to him about his experience,” said the voicemail.
Reinhard claimed to be interested only in finding information that would “help fill out what we know about his background” for her story.
The wife sent the text of the voice message to her husband, who revealed that he, too, had been receiving calls: “Wow. Yeah do not answer. They’re putting together a hit piece on [Tim Sheehy]. I’ve been contacted twice this week.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., ridiculed the Post for its lack of integrity, cold-calling a woman after failing to contact her husband.
“The Washington Post is no longer a media outlet,” Cotton told the Daily Caller, accusing the newspaper of shamelessly backing President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
“It’s now the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party,” Cotton added. “These ‘journalists’ are smearing Tim Sheehy because they know he’ll fight for Montana values and against Biden’s policies.”
Sheehy is locked in a tight race with Democrat Jon Tester, whom many consider to be among the most vulnerable incumbents up for reelection this year. Republicans would need to flip two seats in order to regain the majority in the upper chamber.
Matt Rosendale, one of Montana’s two current congressmen in the House of Representatives, previously dropped out of the race in part at the encouragement of former President Donald Trump, who already had endorsed Sheehy.
However, Rosendale also cited as one of the main reasons for his exit the fact that he his family had received death threats and that media outlets including Politico had spread what he characterized as a defamatory story about an alleged sex scandal, which originated via a podcast interview with former Rep. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D.
Reinhard, an Ivy League graduate of Columbia University’s prestigious journalism school and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, has been at the Post since 2017, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Prior to that, she spent approximately three years at the Wall Street Journal.
According to the Federal Election Commission, a self-employed writer by the name of Elizabeth Reinhard, who resided in a posh apartment near Battery Park in Manhattan at the same time as Reinhard’s employment with the Journal, made five donations totaling $3,500 to two separate groups supporting Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016.
A person with the same name but using a different residential address made $650 more in contributions to Democrat causes in 2018 and 2019.
Headline USA was unable to verify that this was the same Beth Reinhard. After reaching out via email to Reinhard, a Washington Post spokesperson responded, denying any connection between its reporter and the Hillary Clinton donations.
“Beth Reinhard did not make the donations referenced in the story,” said the Post. “This insinuation is false and to tie Beth to another individual named ‘Elizabeth Reinhard’ is wholly inaccurate.”
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
