GOP Senate candidate plans to steer book sale money to a group that lobbies for his industry, teeing up potential conflict of interest

• Tim Sheehy is releasing a memoir in the middle of his campaign for US Senate in Montana.
• He plans to steer some of the revenue from the book to an industry lobbying group he helped found.

The GOP's top US Senate recruit in Montana plans to steer a portion of the revenue from his forthcoming memoir to an industry group that lobbies federal lawmakers, adding to existing conflict-of-interest questions surrounding the wealthy first-time candidate.

Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and the CEO of an aerial firefighting company called Bridger Aerospace, is set to publish a memoir later this year called "Mudslingers: A True Story of Aerial Firefighting," which will tell a "dramatic and colorful story of aerial firefighting in America," according to publisher Simon and Schuster.

The book's release, set for December 12, could come in the midst of a competitive, heated primary election against Rep. Matt Rosendale, a member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus who lost to incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in 2018. Tester, seeking a fourth term, is among the most vulnerable US senators up for re-election next year.

Candidates for office occasionally release books to help burnish their image and tell their story, and sitting lawmakers sometimes draw hundreds of thousands of dollars in outside income from book deals.

But Sheehy's book release poses unique conflict-of-interest questions, given his apparent plans for the revenue.

According to his publisher, Sheehy will donate a portion of the author proceeds from the book to the United Aerial Firefighters Association, a Washington, DC-based industry group that Sheehy helped found less than a year ago that has already spent thousands of dollars lobbying Congress — including on issues that Sheehy's company stands to benefit from.

If Sheehy's campaign chooses to promote the book when it's released, that would mean using campaign resources to raise money for a lobbying organization that benefits Sheehy's bottom line.

Since its founding in late 2022, the association has been public about its interest in extending the length of federal contracts, a move likely to be financially beneficial to the aerial firefighting industry.

In March 2023, the association hired a lobbyist, Phil Hardy, to "weigh in on proposed or actual legislation" including "contracting," according to lobbying disclosures.

Hardy also lobbies on behalf of Bridger Aerospace, and together, the company and the association have paid him tens of thousands of dollars to lobby on legislation this year, according to disclosures.

As Bloomberg reported in June, Sheehy already faces existing conflict-of-interest questions that are unusual for Senate candidates, given that his company derives the vast majority of its revenue from contracts with two federal agencies: the Department of Interior and the US Forest Service.

As a US senator, he would have significant influence over issues that currently benefit him and his company financially, including federal funding for those agencies.

Sheehy also plans to remain the CEO of the company while he campaigns, raising questions about how he will balance his competing roles as a political candidate and the executive of a publicly-traded corporation. His campaign has said he will step down as CEO if elected.

A spokeswoman for Sheehy's campaign did not respond to questions from Insider over exactly what portion of the book revenue would go towards the association, or whether the campaign would promote the book.

The planned arrangement also adds another wrinkle to an ongoing war of words between Sheehy and Tester over the issue of lobbyists.

Tester, who's introduced a bill to ban members of Congress from ever becoming lobbyists, has nonetheless accepted hundreds of thousands in contributions from lobbyists, including new contributions from the defense industry after he became the chair of the Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee in 2021. In 2018, he at one point had received more contributions from lobbyists than any other lawmaker, a fact Republicans highlighted at the time.

And though Tester posts his public schedule, unlike most other lawmakers, he failed to disclose a meeting that included a registered lobbyist at a Boeing facility as he weighed President Joe Biden's nominee for the Federal Aviation Administration.