A former Lehigh Valley congressional candidate says his confidential military records were unlawfully released.
Kevin Dellicker, a New Tripoli resident and 2022 Republican candidate for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, said in a release Tuesday that he was among a select group of individuals that had their confidential military records released to an unauthorized person, in response to falsified records requests.
Dellicker’s release said he was notified by the Air Force Personnel Center, and that the requestor was “employed by an opposition research firm tied to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.”
The release also said the individual targeted several GOP congressional candidates using similar methods, including current Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) and Zach Nunn (R-Iowa).
According to reporting from POLITICO, an Air Force spokesperson told the paper that “virtually all” of the 11 unapproved releases were made to the same third party, “who represented himself as a background investigator seeking service records for employment purposes.”
POLITICO reports that the individual is Abraham Payton, with the research firm Due Diligence LLC.
In a statement Dellicker, an Air Force Reserve veteran, said he trusts that federal law enforcement authorities “will investigate and prosecute this brazen attack on military information systems.”
He also said he was not pleased that the Air Force failed to follow its own “proper administrative procedures” to protect his confidential information, adding that they need to tighten up “so it doesn’t happen to other airmen.”
Dellicker narrowly lost the GOP nomination for the 7th Congressional District by around 2.5 percentage points to Lisa Scheller, who was defeated by incumbent Congresswoman Susan Wild in the 2022 midterm election.
(Original air-date: 2/22/23)
