The Miami affiliate of CBS News published a lengthy piece Wednesday knocking the “business experience” that Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Fla., claims to have.
The attack comes hours after Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., announced he would seek re-election this November.
Murphy, a second term congressman from West Palm Beach, had a chance of winning the open Senate seat before the GOP incumbent jumped back in to the race Wednesday.
But with Rubio back in, Murphy becomes the primary target of the GOP in the race. A recent RealClearPolitics average found 44 percent of Florida voters would support Rubio in November while 41 percent would back Murphy.
The report said Murphy applied to become a certified public accountant in Colorado because the “requirements were lower” than those in his home state of Florida. It also said Murphy took the licensing text nine times.
Murphy then went to work for Deloitte & Touche. He used his background as a Florida Keys resident to call for reform during the BP oil spill, and pushed himself into the national spotlight as a spokesman for change.
He left the consulting firm after two and a half years and went to work for one of the companies charged with cleaning up the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, the report said.
Murphy has made a name for himself on the campaign trail during both House runs and in the current Senate bid by citing his experience as a small business owner and accountant, but the CBS author said that was not the case.
“A CBS4 News investigation into Murphy’s history as both a CPA and a self-described small business owner, however, shows Murphy has in some cases exaggerated his experience and in other instances made claims that were misleading or outright false. For instance, he has never worked a day in his life as a Certified Public Accountant. And he was never a small business owner,” the report said.
Murphy has not issued a statement in response to the report.
