In the business world, CEOs have to answer to their shareholders about the successes and failures of their company. You can’t dodge questions you don’t like in the boardroom, and you can’t hide from the people you were hired to serve. 

Running for elected office shouldn’t be any different. Any individual seeking to represent Montana has an obligation to, at the very least, show up and answer basic questions from voters about who they are and who they claim to be. 

But Tim Sheehy thinks he can play by a different set of rules in his campaign for Montana’s U.S. Senate seat. I’m a Montana voter who recently tried to attend one of Sheehy’s public events to ask him simple questions about his failing business and his financial obligations to Gallatin County. Instead of looking me in the eyes and answering my questions like a man, Sheehy ordered his political attack-dogs to forcibly remove me from the venue. 

JUST NOW: Gallatin County-based financial expert Marc Cohodes, who has highlighted the issues with Sheehy’s company in op-eds and interviews, engaged with Tim Sheehy and tries asking questions. Sheehy shouts back at him as Marc gets thrown out #mtpol #mtsen pic.twitter.com/6ZFEB7AEqG

— Hannah Rehm (@HannahRehm_) September 30, 2024

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Sheehy’s cowardly move to dodge questions from the Montana constituents he is running to represent is part of a larger, well-documented effort to avoid having to answer for his shady business record and lengthy list of lies. CNN recently reported that Sheehy “rarely grants interviews to local or national press, while his campaign doesn’t discuss his schedule or provide information about his events, which tend to be closed affairs.” Sheehy is running scared from both the press and the people. 

This all begs the question: what is Sheehy trying to hide? 

Well, as a financial expert who has spent my career taking on scammers and crooks, it is obvious to me that Sheehy is afraid to answer questions because he knows he will be exposed as the fraud that he is. The simple fact is that Sheehy’s company has more than $200 million in debt all because of his failed leadership. So here are three questions that I would have asked Sheehy in person had he given me the chance: 

1. How could Bridger possibly pay back its enormous debt – especially when the company has lost more than $150 million under your leadership in the past four years? 
2. What is the risk to Gallatin County if your company defaults on its bond, and how do we know taxpayers won’t be strapped with the bill? 
3. Why won’t you take accountability for running Bridger into the financial red? If you won’t tell the truth about your failing business, and you won’t answer questions from voters, how can Montanans trust you to represent us in the Senate?

These three questions should be easy for Sheehy to answer. And if we were in the boardroom, he would have nowhere to hide. But Sheehy is trying to run out the clock on the campaign trail and fool Montana voters into buying what he’s selling. 

If Montana voters want to vote for a candidate who has run his business straight into the ground, wants to sell off our public lands to his wealthy out-of-state friends, attacks a woman’s right to choose while saying slimy things about crawling out of his “mother’s womb,” and continues to tell lies to the press and the public, that is their choice to make. But until Tim Sheehy answers basic questions from Montana voters, he is not fit to serve our great state. 

The simple fact is that just like company shareholders, Montana should be asking about Tim Sheehy’s deeply flawed business record and his refusal to answer questions.