Navy veterans are sounding off a couple of Democratic congressional candidate who they are saying inflated his Navy report and used a deceased Korea Warfare vet’s gravesite as a marketing campaign prop.
Ammar Campa-Najjar — a candidate for an east San Diego congressional seat and boyfriend of billionaire Qualcomm heiress Rep. Sara Jacobs — is beneath fireplace for fudging particulars of his service to spice up his marketing campaign.
“I supported Ammar previously, however gained’t once more,” stated Elizabeth Perez-Rodriguez, a former CalVet deputy secretary, Vista entrepreneur and Navy fight veteran, in an announcement.
“As a fight veteran, I can’t stand when political candidates exploit the uniform for politics and utilizing a veteran’s gravesite in your marketing campaign is poisonous and disrespectful.”
Ammar Campa-Najjar, a Navy Reserve officer since 2023, known as himself a “Navy Officer” in marketing campaign supplies — a violation of insurance policies that Navy reservists working for workplace should precisely state their reserve standing.
Campa-Najjar was additionally blasted for staging photographs ops on the Massachusetts Nationwide Cemetery gravesite of a Korea Warfare veteran with whom he had no relationship — later utilizing the photographs on his marketing campaign web site.
His marketing campaign informed The Submit he didn’t know the veteran, who died in 1997 and is called Richard Ok. Stephenson, however took the picture whereas “collaborating in an official Memorial Day occasion the place he, alongside his unit, honored fallen service members.”
“At no level did the marketing campaign interact in political exercise at a VA cemetery, and any suggestion in any other case is a misrepresentation of each the information and the relevant guidelines,” Campa-Najjar’s marketing campaign supervisor, Andi McNew, informed The Submit.
Marketing campaign exercise at nationwide cemeteries is strictly prohibited beneath federal legislation and Veterans Affairs laws.
Michael Malach, an Military fight veteran, stated: “All these allegations are damning and present an entire disregard for what army service and sporting the uniform ought to imply.
“Disgrace on Campa-Najjar and anybody who supported these cynical political stunts, particularly utilizing posed portraits at a deceased veteran’s grave to attempt to increase his marketing campaign.”
The veterans’ reactions had been shared by Marni Von Wilpert, one other Democrat working for the forty eighth congressional district.
“Our nationwide cemeteries are sacred floor – not political backdrops. Utilizing a service member’s gravesite at a VA cemetery for political marketing campaign photographs is among the many most disrespectful, distasteful and cynical political ploys I’ve ever seen,” added Brian Van Riper, Marine Corps fight veteran and former organizer for Barack Obama.
Campa-Najjar, the grandson of a Palestinian militant, has since eliminated the picture at Stephenson’s grave from his web site and edited his marketing campaign supplies to notice his reserve standing.
“Whereas the Navy has not requested any modifications be made, the marketing campaign is comfortable to incorporate extra particulars of Ammar’s service to the nation,” McNew stated.
“Ammar is a proud Navy Reserve Officer who has been on energetic responsibility standing all through intervals of his profession, together with within the Phillipines, in addition to at Pacific Fleet Head Quarters and Fort Meade.”
The Navy is investigating Campa-Najjar over the allegations that he’s misused his Navy service to assist his marketing campaign.
“The Navy is trying into the matter. Now we have nothing additional to offer,” a spokesperson informed The Submit.
That is Campa-Najjar’s third marketing campaign for Congress — having misplaced two prior campaigns in 2018 and 2020 in addition to a race for Chula Vista mayor, bankrolled by Jacobs and her rich household.
Jacobs and her relations have thrown greater than $200,000 at Campa-Najjar’s failed campaigns for workplace within the San Diego space.
Campa-Najjar has additionally been criticized for weird political flip-flops, campaigning first as a lefty in 2018 earlier than embracing conservative positions in his second failed congressional marketing campaign in 2020.
He ran once more as a liberal for Chula Vista mayor in 2022, shedding to Republican John McCann.
