Patrick Murphy, a former aide to President Obama who is now trying to win a Democratic primary for Congress in Florida, held a forum in Tampa on Wednesday at which he touted his qualifications for the role, based on his prosecutorial experience.
“My wife, very sweetly, said to me, ‘How can you say that you’re a prosecutor without having prosecutorial experience?’” he said in prepared remarks.
He then went on to state his qualifications:
I have spent more than 25 years as a prosecutor, both at the federal and state level. I have prosecuted violent criminals for the last 13 years. I’ve prosecuted child predators and sexual offenders in my county. I have prosecuted child sex trafficking as well as human trafficking for the past seven years, where I was a state attorney.
But all this about prosecutorial experience came a week after it was revealed that the 42-year-old had served as a U.S. attorney for only 25 days in 2009-2010 and later took a job at the law firm O’Melveny & Myers.
Officials told the Miami Herald that his probation officer directed Murphy to take a job that was more properly the work of a prosecutor. His accuser, Emilia Arocho, worked at the same firm.
“Patrick Murphy’s candidacy for Congress is less about his criminal justice experience and more about the repeated lies he told about his U.S. attorney’s background,” campaign spokesman Juan Rodriguez told the Miami Herald.