No record of faithless elector' Chris Suprun as a 9/11 first responder

[NWCorona]

Source: ABC


The Republican elector who has gotten national attention for refusing to vote for Donald Trump at the Electoral College on Dec. 19 was apparently not a first responder on September 11, 2001 as he has stated for years and has a questionable career history, according to an investigation by WFAA.

In a heavily-publicized editorial this month for the New York Times, Suprun stated that as a member of the Electoral College he will not cast his ballot for Trump because the president-elect “shows daily he is not qualified for the office.”

Responding on Reddit today, Chris Suprun said he worked as a firefighter in Dale City, Virginia on September 11, 2001. But there's no listing for Dale City on his publicly available and comprehensive LinkedIn résumé. In September 2001, according to Suprun's LinkedIn résumé, he was employed by the Manassas Park, Virginia fire department. Suprun also does not list being a firefighter in Dale City, Virginia on a lengthy seven-page paper résumé he has recently handed out to potential employers in Texas. Neither Suprun nor his public relations firms have responded to WFAA since this story was first published.

"He claimed to be a first responder with the Manassas Park [Virginia] Fire Department on September 11, 2001 and personally told us stories 'I was fighting fire that day at the Pentagon.’ No, I was on a medic unit that day at the Pentagon and you make a phone call to Manassas Park and you find out that he wasn't even employed there until October 2001,” said a first responder who knows Suprun and only agreed to speak about him if his identity was concealed.

Read more: http://www.wfaa.com/mb/news/local/texas-news/no-record-of-faithless-elector-chris-suprun-as-a-911-first-responder/371421191

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Anybody surprised? I'm so tired of the stolen valor crowd.

[Sunlei]

1. Republicans show how their people only get 'vetted' if they try to walk away.

[JI7]

2. will they ever do this type of reporting on Trump ?

[JustinL]

3. why isn't anyone digging into the past of POS's "faithful" electors? n/t

[Hortensis]

19. All "faithful" electors will prove themselves betrayers.

Chuckling at what real investigations would reveal. Today's totally corrupted GOP is riddled with scum of the earth.

[Judi Lynn]

4. At least he has done something honorable if he continues to not support Trump. n/t

[paleotn]

5. Or course he's a fraud. He's an f'ing rethuglican....

...but like a broken clock, he's right this one time.

[NWCorona]

9. This

[OKNancy]

6. Salon says this is a smear campaign

GOP elector voting against Donald Trump faces smear campaign over 9/11 first-responder claim

http://www.salon.com/2016/12/16/gop-elector-voting-against-donald-trump-faces-smear-campaign-over-911-first-responder-claim/#.WFSBXAA-nQw.twitter

Christopher Suprun of Texas, who remains the only Republican elector to publicly join the Hamilton Electors and announce that he will not vote for Donald Trump on Dec. 19, is facing a smear campaign that he believes emanates from the president-elect.

Suprun has said he was a first responder during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and has now been accused of falsifying that claim. Those accusations, however, revolve around evidence that Suprun was not in New York during or after 9/11, when he has never claimed he was. Suprun says he responded to the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon as a volunteer firefighter in northern Virginia. Salon has confirmed that Suprun worked at various Virginia fire departments between 1994 and about 2004.

---snip--

Suprun believes these malicious reports are part of a smear campaign orchestrated against him by a worried Trump team.

“We’ve got multiple reports of them threatening other electors, saying ‘You’re not going to have a political future,'” Suprun told Salon in an interview. “I’m not really sure why anybody else would come after me this hard, this fast, and with a bunch of make-believe in a lot of cases.”

Suprun told Salon that he started as a volunteer in the Annandale Fire Department in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1994, and was working as a volunteer in nearby Dale City, Virginia, at the time of the 9/11 attacks. He later became a professional firefighter in Manassas Park, Virginia, he says, before moving to Texas in 2004.

Suprun expressed dismay at the fact that “fully grown adults who support Donald Trump spend their nights bullying children,” saying that this “should be a red flag to all Americans about this man and his followers.”


rest at the link

[NWCorona]

10. There's no doubt in my mind that the knives are out for this guy because he's against trump

But the link you supplied says that the smear is centered around the that he's claiming that he was in NY responder but my link clearly states that he's claiming that he was responding to the attack on the Pentagon. From my understanding they are claiming that he wasn't on that department until afterwards and that there isn't a record of him ever being at the Pentagon.

[LisaL]

12. He says he was a volunteer firefighter. Which presumably would explain why there would be no record

of him being employed as a firefighter.
Which is what is claimed in your OP-that he wasn't employed there until Oct 2001. Well, he was apparently a volunteer.

[NWCorona]

14. Even volunteers are on the official rosters. I don't think it's an employment issue.

[keithbvadu2]

15. Even volunteers are usually on some official roster.

Even volunteers are usually on some official roster.

The fire departments would want their volunteers qualified.

[Tiggeroshii]

17. Salon corroborated the fact he was an active firefighter in VA during the Pentagon attack, which he

claimed to be a first responder to. Since the Pentagon is in VA, not NY as ABC is falsely insinuating.

[keithbvadu2]

18. Then why would he leave it out of his bio?

He makes his own doubts.

[Tiggeroshii]

20. What he claims and whether there is evidence for it, is verified

Making the entire ABC story fake news

Since there is plenty of wvidence Suprun was a 9/11 first responder as he has claimed.

[Igel]

38. And yet the story crucially says "employed."

It takes pains to point out he wasn't *employed* as a firefighter at the time.

My spidey-sense was tingling before I read the comments. The word "employed" was used just a bit too often or too prominently. While it could have been new-information focus, I thought it too prominent for that and by the end of just what was posted in the OP it had acquired the status of contrastive focus.

If he wasn't employed as a firefighter, then that left open the possibility of volunteer firefighter.

The story didn't close off that particular way of understanding the facts, which would have squared the circle quite nicely and in a decent bit of reporting would be necessary. Instead, it seemed to rely on reader assumptions that this was ruled out but not worthy of mention. That's the heart and soul of fake news: Take what's seen as not just all fact but "all the facts" because, well, it's either easy or desirable.

(Still don't know whether to trust Salon. On the other hand, such a hole in the original story calls for such a fact-checking.)

[Tiggeroshii]

7. Stolen valor people suck. But maybe he can make it up by saving our democracy.

[NWCorona]

13. If he ended up stopping Trump. He'd get somewhat of a pass from me.

[Tiggeroshii]

23. Looks like the accusations are false, anyways...

That would make him 2-0 in my book

[NWCorona]

24. Good for him if true

[LisaL]

8. Oh for crying out loud.

Seems like they are smearing this guy because he supposedly won't give his vote to Trump.

[NWCorona]

11. Definitely! That doesn't mean that this story isn't true tho.

[YOHABLO]

16. So how did this guy become an elector?

[Tiggeroshii]

22. The headline is completely false.

See response #6

[Igel]

40. Texas electors are chosen at the state party conventions.

That was May 12 or thereabouts. By that time, Trump was all but assured of being the (R) nominee.

In other words, Suprun got the gig knowing that he'd almost certainly either be Trump's elector or not an elector.

His only way out of this is to say that he assumed at the RN convention they'd have thrown Trump under the bus and voted for somebody else. Seems like a sketchy thing to bank your word on. Even then, by September it was clear who'd he be voting for (if voting at all), and he still seemed to be okay with standing as Trump's elector. His change of heart came late, and if you can't keep your word when it hurts to do so your word's only as good as you find convenient.

[Tiggeroshii]

21. Just ABC spreading more fake news.

He was a firefighter in VA when the Pentagon attacks happened. There is plenty of evidence for that, making the headline entirely false.

[onenote]

25. What evidence supports his claim other than his saying it

Salon's article says they've confirmed that he worked for various fire departments between 1993 and 2004 but offers zero support for his claim to have been a volunteer for the Dale City fire department on 9/11 or of his claim to have been at the pentagon that day. Maybe it's true maybe it's not. But all we have now is his assertion with no back up.

[Tiggeroshii]

27. Until there is credible reason to question it, he is under no cloud of suspicion

ABC lost their credibility when they made a false assertion intentionally designed to mislead us. Your argument is starting to sound quite Rumsfeldian, if I might say

"Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"


Going after somebody with no basis doesn't usually work out for a ton of people, and we would be well off to heed the lessons learned. The same frame of logic was used to essentially deligitimize a highly honorable service member to win a previous election... You might remember John Kerry?

[onenote]

35. You said there was "plenty of evidence" that he was a firefighter in

In VA in 9/11. I pointed out that the only evidence was his assertion. Now you've retreated from your claim that there is"plenty of evidence" to the position that there is no evidence that he wasn't. That's a much different argument. As I said maybe he was and maybe he wasn't. Three only thing that there is evidence of is that his resume claim about working for the Manassas fire department that day was false.

[Tiggeroshii]

36. ABC's entire basis for questioning him was that he wasnt in NY on 9/11

There was plenty of evidence he was in another state where an attack happened. That is plenty of evidence to counter ABC's smear. And to assert there is anything more nefarious happening off no evidence is just buying into character defamation, which is a dirty business.

[onenote]

39. Look, I hope WFAA is proven wrong

But it's original story did not as far as I can tell say he claimed to be in NYC. It aid he claimed have been fighting fires at the pentagon that day and that his own resume indicated he was employed at the time by the Manassas fire dept and that fire dept's records show he wasn't hired until October 2011. That's not fake news. The guy has come back saying he was a volunteer with the Dale City fire dept that day and was at the pentagon in that role. I hope some evidence comes out to back up his claim. But so far all I've seen is his sssertion, which is not "plenty" of evidence.

[Tiggeroshii]

42. Attempting to discredit somebody over little to no evidence as the article is doing, is fake news

He claimed to be a first responder. He did not claim to be a paid first responder. And to put volunteer organizations on your resume is never outside standard practice. Trying to say he made the claims you are asserting is at worst blatantly dishonest and at best reaching for dirt. Again, this whole issue isn't anything more than trying to de-legitimize an otherwise honorable civil servant.

[Eliot Rosewater]

26. By all means lets not now do what the electoral college was CREATED to do and

correct the mistake of an election by keeping a madman away from nuclear weapons because one elector might have misstated something on his resume.

Like dodging that bullet of having a president who once used a private server, right?

[Tiggeroshii]

29. See response #6

[hrmjustin]

31. Ah! Well if he can show where he volunteered he can throw this back at his detractors.

[Tiggeroshii]

32. Salon corroborated it

So yeah

[hrmjustin]

34. They tried to steal his valor! The GOP has no honor.

[Tiggeroshii]

37. Agreed.

[HassleCat]

30. I was a first responder on 9-11.

I heard about it on the radio, and I responded, "Oh, shit!" I said this before anyone else in the room said anything, so that makes me a first responder.

[Tiggeroshii]

33. See response #6

[duffyduff]

41. Only ONE Republican elector has joined the "Hamilton Electors"?

That proves to me the HEs are nothing but a Clinton-hating bunch of assholes.