In J.R. Majewski’s telling, the conditions were perfect for a mixup.
“I was in the car on my way home from Washington, D.C., driving with one of the folks who worked for me,” he said in a March 23 interview with The Epoch Times.
It was late September 2022, and the Republican running to fill Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s (D-Ohio) seat in the 9th District was on his way to a GOP dinner in Toledo.
Majewski suddenly found himself on another tight deadline when the Associated Press reached out to his office at 10:30 a.m. with questions about his U.S. Air Force record. They wanted answers by 5 p.m.
It would later become clear the AP had been working on the story for months.
Majewski, who first gained attention in 2020 for painting a giant Trump flag on his triangular yard, had spoken about serving in Operation Enduring Freedom on the campaign trail. He'd mentioned spending time in Afghanistan.
“My orders were to Qatar and not Afghanistan, but I flew in and out of multiple areas within the Operation Enduring Freedom theater during my deployment,” Majewski told The Epoch Times.
He says he was flying sorties full of “goods, troops, weapons, you name it.”
Majewski, a burly, bearded man with a thick Great Lakes accent, looks, walks, and talks like the prototypical Midwestern Trump supporter–the group that swung the 2016 election to the former president.
Left-wing podcaster Sam Seder dubbed Majewski “Ohio’s Biggest MAGA Chud.”
Months after the midterms, the former candidate still sees himself as part of a new GOP, at odds with the establishment that dominated the Republican Party before Trump.
“I think it can be argued that there’s a neocon or globalist group in the Republican Party that certainly wants us to get back to those days,” he said.
Air Force Service Questioned
Back in September, on the road to Toledo, Majewski’s immediate challenge was recollecting the specifics of his military record nearly two decades earlier.“I call my wife, and my wife starts digging through all my records,” he said.
Majewski says he sent pictures of those documents to the AP, which then responded with “a flurry of questions.”
“Then they published their article on the 22nd and accused me of misrepresenting my military service.”
They instead indicated he “completed a six-month stint helping to load planes at an air base in Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally that is a safe distance from the fighting.”
Reached by The Epoch Times, the Air Force could only confirm Majewski’s deployment to Qatar. They could not verify that he spent time in Afghanistan.
Majewski has argued that comments to the AP from the Air Force Personnel Office aren’t inconsistent with his claims regarding Afghanistan.
In comments to the Toledo Blade, Dickerson disclosed just how much the Air Force doesn’t know.
“You have to recognize that this is the Air Force,” he said. ”People do fly in and out of places all of the time. We can’t confirm or deny that he served in Afghanistan because we [can’t see] that in our databases.”
The AP questioned Majewski’s account of spending 40 days in Afghanistan without a shower.
Majewski sticks to that story too.
“We used water bottles and baby wipes. I was on the flight line or flying. We didn’t have all the amenities that eventually came,” he said.
Majewski’s self-description as a “combat veteran” also came under scrutiny.
He has produced pay stubs showing he received “imminent danger pay.”
The Epoch Times has examined those stubs.
The Air Force Personnel Office could not authenticate those paystubs for The Epoch Times, citing the fact that they contained personally identifiable information.
With Majewski’s consent, The Epoch Times was able to directly verify his receipt of IDP through accessing his military payroll records.
“I’ve never claimed to be Rambo. What I’ve said is that I’m a combat veteran, and that’s defined by the military and the Veterans Administration,” Majewski said.
The Epoch Times could not independently interview that individual or confirm his service as of press time.
An Air Force webpage on the criteria for that medal indicates that it can be won by “service members who, as a regularly assigned crew member [flew] sorties into, out of, within or over the area of eligibility.”
In addition, the medal was only created in 2003, after Majewski left the Air Force.
Majewski believes he would meet the qualifications for that award. He expects to receive it soon. First, though, he has to modify his DD-214, the core documentation of veterans’ service.
“Did you literally fake this?” one anonymous Twitter user asked the Air Force veteran.
“Call them and find out,” Majewski replied.
The Air Force has independently authenticated that letter to The Epoch Times.
Second Story Raises Questions on Document Access
On Sept. 28, the AP published a second article headlined, “Records contradict Majewski’s account of military punishment.”While stuck in traffic on his way to Toledo, Majewski recalled being demoted for fighting in a dormitory.
“It was a mixup because these things happened back to back,” he said.
Majewski says he wrote to the AP to explain his mistake but has yet to hear back.
The AP did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Epoch Times.
As soon as the AP published its second story, Majewski knew something wasn’t right.
Without his signature, the information about his non-judicial punishment shouldn’t have reached the public.
In his words, he told, “everyone who would listen that they had a copy of [his] records illegally.”
The National Republican Campaign Committee canceled advertisements in support of Majewski.
Majewski pointed out that a top Republican, Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), actually went on to campaign for him in his district after the AP stories appeared, suggesting that the GOP did not abandon him.
Still, he reflected, “at the end of the day, them pulling that money from me hurt me more than anything.”
Majewski lost to incumbent Kaptur, who ran ads showcasing the AP’s reporting.
Some Answers Emerge
The answers, when they came, would involve what the Air Force claims was its error in response to a less visible partisan actor than Majewski.The letter showed he had done so under the stated pretense of “employment and benefits.”
He also had a copy of Majewski’s Social Security Number.
“Department of the Air Force employees did not follow proper procedures requiring the member’s authorizing signature consenting to the release of information,” an Air Force spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email authenticating Majewski’s letter.
Majewski was one of seven Republican congressional candidates whose records were improperly released to the Due Diligence Group by the Air Force in 2021 and 2022.
FEC records show the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee also paid it $173,000 during that period.
Reps. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.) also had their records improperly released.
Another candidate, Jennifer-Ruth Green, had the record of her sexual assault leaked.
“I said at one point in my life to my assailant, ‘No, please stop, don’t,’ and he did what he wanted to do. And so this is the exact same situation all over again, all because there was a man who wanted some sort of gratification,” Green told Fox News Digital regarding Politico’s decision to publish details of the incident.
Kendall’s response came after Rogers and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) wrote Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Feb. 13 about the release of documents to the Due Diligence Group.
“This conduct by the Air Force is, at a minimum, unacceptable. The conduct by the research firm is quite possibly criminal,” the representatives stated.
Payton and Due Diligence Group may have run afoul of the Privacy Act.
Agency employees and officers could face similar penalties for knowingly or willfully improper disclosures.
Comer and Rogers warned in their Feb. 13 letter that the Privacy Act, internal Department of Defense policy, and the Freedom of Information Act are all at play.
They also asked for the names of anyone involved in releasing the records and information on any Due Diligence Group criminal referrals.
Payton, of Due Diligence Group, appears to have served on the alumni board of St. Olaf College, a possibility Majewski raised in a Twitter post about the letter he received.
The Epoch Times has reached out to St. Olaf.
The Air Force maintains that politics had nothing to do with what happened in the Air Force Personnel Office.
“There was no evidence of political motivation or malicious intent on the part of any employee,” a spokesperson told The Epoch Times regarding Majewski’s records.
Not everyone is necessarily convinced by that assessment.
Rogers and Comer’s Feb. 13 letter said the releases “[raise] concerning questions of possible illicit motive or political partisanship.”
Susan DelBene just so happens to chair the DCCC, one of the Democratic organizations that paid Due Diligence Group.
“I firmly believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty. That said, I am troubled by all of the striking coincidences involved in all of this,” Majewski told The Epoch Times on March 29.
Uncertain Future
Even after everything, Majewski thinks he might run for office again.“My mind right now is kind of focused on clearing the air,” he said. “Losing was hard.”
In conversation with The Epoch Times, he took a page from Trump: “He’s a little rambunctious, he’s arrogant, but you know where he stands.”
For the moment, Majewski has plenty of time. He resigned from his job so he could run in 2022.
“I’ve been spending time with my family and friends,” he said.
The months and years to come will show if Majewski, and his service-related claims, are vindicated; and whether the Air Force veteran can pull off a Trump-style comeback.
Due Diligence Group, National File, the DCCC, and the House Armed Services Committee did not respond to requests for comment from The Epoch Times.
