SCAMS AND SNAKE OILS: Why Herschel Walker Isn’t Ready to Represent Georgia

With Herschel Walker finally expected to take the debate stage on Friday, it’s worth highlighting the scrutiny he has faced over his involvement with scams – including hawking a snake oil COVID-killing dry mist, partnering with a fake charity that preyed on veterans, and claiming to own businesses that don’t exist.  

The fact is Walker’s record — riddled with scams, lies, and unpaid loans — shows Georgians he can’t be trusted to represent them:

1. Walker has faced scrutiny for his connection to a fake charity for veterans he claimed to have created. In reality, he made a fortune serving as a spokesperson for a private hospital chain’s for-profit program that “preyed upon veterans and service members while defrauding the government.”
   
2. Walker partnered with an energy company that allegedly targeted “the elderly and those with language barriers,” scamming them into “contracts they did not understand” by “falsely saying they would save them money.”
   
3. Walker claimed for years to have donated “millions of dollars to charities” from his businesses’ profits, but an investigation found that “there is scant evidence that Mr. Walker’s giving matched those promises.”
4. Walker “spent years promoting health products with dubious claims” that were “not supported by medical evidence generally accepted by the medical community” — products that were “commercial failures, cost Walker and his business partners millions of dollars and put his companies into deep debt, for which creditors have repeatedly sued Walker and his associates to recover.”
   
5. Walker never repaid many of his business loans — including a $600,000 loan he personally guaranteed that a judge has repeatedly told him and his business partners to repay.
   
6. Walker’s business record is riddled with lies and “demonstrably false claims”, from “claim[ing] to own companies that don’t exist” to years-long lies about owning the “largest minority-owned food company in the United States”.
   
7. Walker claimed he possessed a “dry mist” product that would — “as you walk through the door” — “kill any COVID on your body.”
    
8. Walker mocked businesses for taking PPP loans to keep workers on payroll — despite taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in PPP loans himself and sitting on the board of a company that took “more than $9.7 million while, at the same time, laying off 90% of its hotel staff.”

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