Monica Tranel is the Democrat candidate for Congress in Montana's Western Congressional District. She's taking heat for her radical environmental record, and for defending a convicted child rapist.

Chris Shipp is a former Montana GOP Executive Director who was the Montana state campaign chair for President Trump's 2016 campaign. He later served in the Trump Administration as a senior official in the Commerce Department.

When it comes to the Western Congressional District race in Montana, Shipp says he'd vote for a Navy SEAL veteran like Ryan Zinke over a radical environmentalist lawyer like Tranel any day. Shipp says it's about more than just her environmentalist record.

Chris Shipp: She's trying to paint herself as this environmental lawyer because that's what she thinks is going to work in Western Montana. I don't know that that's the case. But about 10 years ago, she also represented a guy named Robert Riggs. If anybody's by a computer, you have your phone, look up Riggs v Montana and Monica Tranel. And what you will see is she was his lawyer after he was already convicted of some absolutely heinous things. He was convicted of sexual assault, sexual intercourse without consent, incest, all of these felonies. And then Monica Tranel tried to get him off, arguing that his previous counsel was ineffective. She's trying to put a child molester, convicted, back out on the streets, get him a new trial. What does that say about her?

Full audio with Chris Shipp:

Zinke also took Tranel to task in a recent guest opinion column in the Missoulian:

My opponent, Monica Tranel, a radical environmental lawyer who made millions off efforts to shut American oil and gas productionhike utility rates, and defending a convicted child molester, already supports it. She yelled her support at the crowd gathered for the debate last  Monday in Missoula, even though every credible economic analysis says it will kill jobs, increase health insurance premiums and raise taxes on nearly every Montanan.

 

 

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