Tom MacArthur: 'Andy Kim Is an Outright Fraud,' Not Bush 'National Security Officer'

Congressman Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) told Breitbart News in an exclusive statement on Friday that “Andy Kim is an outright fraud” contending that his Democratic opponent Andy Kim never was a “national security officer” during the George W. Bush administration.

Last week, Kim launched an ad that highlighted his military service as a “national security officer” for both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

Congressman Tom MacArthur rebuked Kim’s embellished national security experience in an exclusive statement to Breitbart News, saying, “Andy Kim is an outright fraud. He was never – under any circumstance – a ‘national security officer’ for President George W. Bush. Yet, he is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on television saying he was. Andy Kim is an unemployed tax-cheat who will resist everything the president does if he is elected to Congress. We can’t let that happen.”

Chris Russell, MacArthur’s campaign strategist, shot back at the Kim campaign last week, explaining that Kim’s career during the Bush administration cannot be construed as a “national security officer.”

“Under absolutely no circumstance could Andy Kim be considered a national security officer for President George W. Bush. Full stop. End of story,” said Russell. “Trying to equate his brief time spent working in government at age 22 to his self-proclaimed ‘time in the Situation Room’ during the Obama Administration is like comparing apples and watermelons.”

According to Kim’s own LinkedIn page, Kim worked as an entry-level staffer for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for less than a year when he was 22-years-old.

On Kim’s fundraising CrowdPAC page,  Kim claims he was a “strategic advisor” to Commanding Generals David Petraeus and John Allen in Afghanistan in early 2011 during his limited time in Kabul, Afghanistan. However, later in 2011, the State Department lists him as a “notetaker” in emails.

Politico reported in July that Kim claimed that he “helped our nation lead a global war against ISIS” and that “from our military headquarters in Afghanistan I served as a strategic adviser to Generals David Petraeus and John Allen,” even though another Politico article in 2014 noted that he served as a “relatively junior national security aide” in the Obama administration.

The Washington Free Beacon noted in May that Kim’s campaign changed the biography section of his website to soften the depiction of his time in the White House and the Pentagon, which MacArthur claimed is proof of his inflated national security credentials.

Kim’s biography changed from him helping to “lead a global war against ISIS” to helping advise the “Secretary of Defense and the Pentagon on national security.”

Zach Carroll, Kim’s campaign manager, pivoted away from Kim’s national security service towards attacking MacArthur in a statement to the New Jersey Globe in May.

“Tom MacArthur’s desperate and false attack is a pathetic attempt to distract from the fact that MacArthur has spent his time in Congress working to repeal health care and get big giveaways for his rich donors, special interests and himself,” Carroll said.

“Who is the real Andy Kim?” Russell said in May regarding Kim’s campaign edits. “Was he a high-level military strategist who needs to take responsibility for the Obama Administration’s failed war against ISIS that allowed the genocide of thousands in the Middle East? Or was he a ‘Notetaker’ and ‘relatively junior national security aide’ now running for Congress with a puffed up resume?”

Congressman MacArthur told Breitbart News in an interview in July that he wants “strong secure borders,” while Kim wants to impeach President Donald Trump, abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, and create open borders.