Busted: GOP candidate's move to blame his staff for stolen valor claims falls apart

Nevada Republican David Flippo blamed anonymous staffers for falsely claiming he earned a Bronze Star with valor. But his own hat says differently, according to Mother Jones.

The Washington Post reported last week that Flippo's congressional campaign repeatedly claimed he received the rare valor distinction, which he admits he never earned. Flippo pinned the error on aides who supposedly mixed up two separate military honors he actually received for his Iraq service.

That explanation runs into a problem: photos on Flippo's campaign website and social media, dating back to at least August 2023, show him repeatedly wearing a cap pairing his Bronze Star with a pair of V-shaped symbols, markings veterans say are unmistakably associated with combat valor citations. He appears to have quietly switched to a plain version of the hat sometime around June of this year.

A valor citation marks someone who faced actual enemy fire during the action being honored, a bar only a small fraction of Iraq War recipients cleared, compared with a standard Bronze Star that simply reflects solid service in a war zone.

Daniel Casentini, a retired Air Force master sergeant, said he couldn't imagine an innocent explanation. "I cannot conceive of any explanation for why Flippo would display two V devices unless he was implying he earned a Bronze Star with a V device," he said.

A former Army Ranger was blunter, telling Mother Jones Flippo was "clearly representing" an award he didn't earn and had "lied." Scott Maryott, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and Nevada VA volunteer, questioned why Flippo would've added the symbols in the first place, or quietly dropped them since. Maryott noted that Flippo's actual Bronze Star citation, for pulling a burned soldier to safety and administering first aid, was legitimately earned, just without valor attached.

"If you're an officer and you served overseas during this operation you probably got a Bronze Star," said Maryott, who holds one himself. "I would never lead with that."

The timing is brutal for Flippo, who's running to replace outgoing Rep. Mark Amodei but facing a strong challenge from Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson.

Nevada's 2nd District, which includes Reno, Carson City, Lake Tahoe, and the deserts across the north of the state, has not elected a Democrat since it was first established in the 1980s. But multiple other weaknesses have already put the seat in play, including Flippo having only recently relocated there, unanswered questions about nearly $2.5 million he's poured into his own campaigns, a refusal by Amodei to endorse him, and a new AFL-CIO-backed ad from local veterans criticizing him.