Gov. Tim Walz’s campaign lied and said he had not been drinking the night he was arrested when the Democratic vice presidential nominee was first running for Congress in 2006.
The Congressional campaign also said that Walz was allowed to drive himself to jail.
Those claims were countered by the officer who pulled Walz over in 1995, when he spoke to DailyMail.com on Wednesday.
But during his 2006 run Walz’s communications director said, ‘The DUI charge was dropped for a reason: It wasn’t true,’ according to CNN.
‘The trooper had him drive to the station and then leave on his own after being at the station,’ his spokesperson had said. ‘Tim feels bad about speeding and has paid the ticket and apologized to his family at the time it happened.’
Tim Walz being booked into the Dawes county jail in September 1995 after being arrested for a DUI
Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz in 2018 before being elected Governor of Minnesota
In reality, 31-year-old Walz was arrested for drunk driving and booked in the county jail.
‘Anyone can get a DUI. The DUI is a mistake. You shouldn’t be out drinking and driving, but anyone can make that mistake. It’s what you do with that,’ retired trooper Steve Rasgorshek told DailyMail.com. ‘At first I was like, OK, fine. He stopped drinking, good for him, and then I started hearing, oh well, he had this excuse.’
Trooper Steve Rasgorshek in 2001 with then Senator Chuck Hagel
According to court documents, Walz was pulled over by Rasgorshek on September 23, 1995 after he clocked the silver Mazda going 96 miles per hour in a 55 zone.
Rasgorshek described it as being out in the ‘middle of nowhere in Nebraska’ and recalled a car speeding northbound from Alliance. He turned around to go after it.
When Walz was pulled over there was a strong odor of alcohol.
Walz failed a field sobriety test.
He also failed a preliminary breath test and was transported to the hospital for a blood test. He was booked into the Dawes County jail just before three o’clock in the morning.
‘He was stopped at 9:30 at night, and I didn’t book him into jail until 2:45 in the morning,’ Rasgorshek said.
‘It should not take nearly that long, but I recall having to wait a long time for a tow truck, and then I believe another trooper finally came by and sat on the vehicle because we don’t just arrest someone and leave their vehicle on the side of the road,’ he said.
‘Then I would have had to driven an hour to the hospital to do a blood draw because the intoxilyzer was not working at the police station, and then it would have been an hour back.’
Walz’s blood alcohol level came back at .128 documents show, but Rasgorshek said it would have been higher when he initially pulled him over.
‘There was nothing significant, like he wasn’t being a jerk that I can remember,’ Rasgorshek said.
‘I don’t believe it was anything more than a typical DUI arrest. I didn’t have to fight him,’ he added.
Documents show Walz ended up in court before Judge James Hansen on March 13, 1996 where he pleaded guilty to reckless driving.
In the court transcript Walz’s lawyer told the judge his client was initially clocked going 70 miles per hour in the 55 zone but then thought someone was chasing him.
‘The officer didn’t turn on his red lights… and somebody came up real fast behind him and he didn’t know what they were doing so he sped up to try and get away, fearing that somebody was after him,’ lawyer Russell Hartford said in the transcript.
‘Low and behold, it was a state patrolman that was behind him, so the faster he went, the faster the state patrol officer went,’ Hartford said. He acknowledged by the time the officer had turned on his red lights ‘the speed was fairly excessive’ and ‘a lot over the speed limit.’
Rasgorshek didn’t dispute that. He said he needed to turn around, catch up and assess the situation to see if he should call in backup before stopping someone.
‘Of course I didn’t have my lights on. I never turn my lights on until I get behind the person I want to stop. That makes sense, I was trying to catch up to him, and he just took off,’ Rasgorshek said.
Walz lawyer acknowledged his client had been drinking in court. He asked the judge to impose a fine.
An image for Tim Walz from when he was a teacher. Court documents show Walz tried to resign after his DUI arrest in 1995 but was talked out of it by the school principal
Walz’ lawyer noted at the time Walz was a teacher at the Alliance High School. Hartford said he ‘felt terrible’ about it and ‘real disappointed’ in himself.
‘He went and immediately reported this incident to his principal. He resigned all of his extracurricular duties at the high school, which included some coaching responsibilities, I believe,’ his lawyer said.
‘He also offered to resign his teaching position because he felt so bad,’ he added, saying Walz felt he let his students down and himself down.
‘Fortunately, the principal talked him out of resigning from school,’ Hartford added.
Walz according to the court transcript started using his experience as a teaching moment for what bad things can happen if you drink and drive.
In the end, he lost his license for ninety days and was slapped with a $200 fine plus court costs.
‘I certainly hope that you’ve learned from this and I hope that you can share that with your students,’ Judge Hansen said.
Walz no longer drinks alcohol and has noted the 1995 DWI before he quit.
Perhaps it would have been laid to rest if the story hadn’t changed when Walz ran for public office.
During his first congressional campaign in 2006, Walz’s arrest was dug up by Republicans. At the time, his campaign manager Kerry Greeley told the Rochester Post Bulletin that hearing loss played a role.
‘He couldn’t understand what the officer was saying to him,’ Greeley told the paper.
His spokesperson was quoted in the NUJournal claiming the officer refused to speak up.
Walz did have surgery for long-term ear damage in 2005, ten years later, but that’s not how Rasgorshek remembered the incident.
‘I don’t recall him saying “I have a problem hearing.” I can tell you if he did say that, I would have spoken up, but I can also tell you that I am not a quiet individual,’ Rasgorshek said.
‘If he’s allowing people to say something like this about something that happened 29 years ago, he should acknowledge it, address it, and it would be done with,’ he said.
During his first bid for Minnesota governor, the Star Tribune reported that Walz had been watching college football with friends the night of his arrest.
In the report, Walz’s wife Gwen said she told her husband ‘you can’t make dumb choices.’