Waupaca County GOP Chair Joel Bartel announced that he is endorsing 26-year-old congressional candidate Mike Alfonso – and, in the same video, he has launched a false smear against former Marine and terrorism survivor Kevin Hermening. But Alfonso is staying silent, and, far from retracting the lies, the Waupaca County GOP’s official Facebook page has kept the video with the blatant falsehoods up.
In the Alfonso endorsement video, Bartel falsely said that Hermening received $3 million in taxpayer money for his 444 days in captivity as a young Marine who was taken hostage in the Iran Embassy. This is not true. According to Hermening, he has received $700,000 over multiple years – none of it taxpayer money – and gave it all to CHARITY. Furthermore, it was Alfonso’s father-in-law Sean Duffy who authored legislation to include the hostages in a terrorism fund when he was a congressman. The false attack came the day after Sawyer County GOP Chair John Righeimer, in his personal capacity, endorsed Hermening. It also came after WRN raised new questions about whether Alfonso still has a part-time job at his local parish that he announced this spring.
In March, Wisconsin Right Now was alerted by a local military veteran that this smear against Hermening was coming, but that source thought it would be trafficked through left-wing veterans’ groups.
“Mr. Kevin, took $3 million of taxpayer funded money because he was an Iran hostage. He received $3 million, let me say that again, $3 million in taxpayer money because he was an Iran hostage,” Bartel lied on video. The lie is still up on the Waupaca County Republican Party’s Facebook page even though Bartel has been called out for the lie. He also said it was an “insult” to other veterans for Hermening “to take that money.”
Hermening, a businessman and the former Marathon County GOP chair, told WRN that these claims are not true. He said he has received only $700,000 so far and gave all of the money to charity. In fact, none of it was from taxpayer funds.
In 2015, Duffy himself authored an article for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel entitled, “Iran hostages deserve justice.” The column included a photo showing Hermening with Ronald Reagan.
That’s why it’s even more bizarre that Alfonso and Duffy have been silent about the false smears against Hermening. However, Sawyer County GOP Chair John Righeimer, former state Rep. Angie Sapik, and prominent 7th District podcaster/former Tea Party activist and conservative talk show host Meg Ellefson, were very critical of the smear. We would ask Alfonso’s campaign about this but they said they won’t ever respond to questions from us.
“As part of the agreement to free the hostages, Iran demanded that the Carter administration sign an agreement known as the Algiers Accords, which barred the hostages from bringing suit for their illegal seizure, detention and the torture they endured. As a result, they remain the only victims of state-sponsored terrorism who cannot seek a judgment in U.S. courts,” Duffy explained in that 2015 article, and he fought hard to rectify this. Today, there are 22,000 claimants to the terrorism fund, financed entirely by sanctions against corporations that have done business with Iran – NOT taxpayer dollars.
Duffy wrote: “Together with Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), I have introduced the Justice for Former American Hostages in Iran Act of 2015 to do just that. This bill has generated strong bipartisan support and would direct the U.S. government to allocate fines and penalties generated by the violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran, as well as other potential assets, to justly compensate the former hostages and their families.”
He added: “There will never be another window of opportunity to retroactively secure justice for America and it’s hostages. When President Carter signed the Algiers Accords, Iran held all the cards: 52 Americans who desperately wanted their freedom. Today, the U.S. commands something of value: the money generated by fining those who violated sanctions against Iran for its illicit nuclear program.”
Righeimer called the “lie/smear” against Hermening “disgusting.” He’s announced that he’s endorsing Hermening in his personal capacity. Sawyer County is Alfonso’s home base.
Sapik, a Republican former member of the State Assembly who is running for Senate, wrote, “This is the most disgusting endorsement I have ever seen. If someone endorsed me in this manner I would publicly reject the endorsement.” She has previously stayed out of the 7th district congressional race, in which Alfonso and Hermening are battling Jessi Ebben and Niina Baum in the GOP primary for Tom Tiffany’s old seat.
We first heard last March from a veteran that the smear against Hermening was coming. That source said it was likely to be trafficked through left-wing veterans groups, and it matched almost to a “T” the attack that Bartel ended up pushing publicly.
“There was a time when political campaigns at least attempted to lead with substance. Candidates stood on a platform of tangible experience, and their teams fought to prove why that qualifications-based platform mattered. Today, in the race for Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, that honorable model feels entirely obsolete,” Ellefson wrote.
“In its place stands a multi-billion-dollar machine run by political consultants whose business model relies on a single, cynical premise: it is vastly easier to lie about an opponent than it is to build genuine respect for your own candidate,” she added. “This cynicism explains how a candidate completely devoid of significant experience or qualifications ends up on our ballot. I have yet to hear a single substantive reason to endorse Alfonso…The citizens of Wisconsin’s 7th District deserve an authentic representative, not a manufactured product created in a lobbyist’s laboratory.”
Ellefson criticized what she called “reprehensible attacks on Kevin Hermening’s honorable service as a U.S. Marine and his time as an Iranian hostage.”
Ashley furniture official Jessi Ebben and dog musher Niina Baum have also been silent on the smear.
