INDIANAPOLIS – Rep. Braun told a whopping series of lies about his business in a July 17 IN Focus interview, where it seems in the wake of a recent report that every single statement he made was false, when he could have come clean about the millions of dollars he made in profits annually from Chinese parts.
FOX-59’s IN Focus aired a segment Sunday from an earlier July interview with Rep. Braun regarding his business practices after an Associated Press report broke last Friday stating that Promaxx Automotive, a brand of Rep. Braun’s Meyer Distributing that sells after-market auto parts, manufactures the bulk of its parts in China despite his claims to the contrary. Rep. Braun has struggled for months to keep the facts straight surrounding his business’ ties to China – but in the wake of the AP’s report, he set a new personal record by lying nearly every sentence.
Let’s go to the tape:
- “No. No Chinese suppliers.” Friday’s AP story reported that Promaxx auto parts were made in China. However, this claim had been proven false at the time of the interview, thanks to earlier AP reports that several of Rep. Braun’s third-party manufacturers produced goods in China, and that Meyer Distributing had received shipments of goods from China. Rep. Braun can’t even keep his story straight for the duration of the question, as he’ll contradict his initial claim by the end of this answer.
- “We have manufacturers that we deal with that buy, we do not, you know, make anything. We’re a distributor.” As the most recent AP story reported, in addition to buying and selling parts from third party suppliers, Meyer also makes its own line of auto parts and sells them under its Promaxx brand.
- “We have 95 percent of the companies that we do business with are American companies.” More than 30% of Meyer’s 777 suppliers are either foreign-headquartered or foreign-made. Even if that stat were true, however, Friday’s report would render it meaningless – Rep. Braun is discussing third-party suppliers, but the bulk of his own Promaxx products are manufactured in China.
- “There are some auto and truck accessories that you can’t get anywhere else.” Competitors to step bars, guards, and winches sold by Promaxx are produced in American factories.
“It’s bad enough that Rep. Braun sees no problem with pocketing $18 million in profits last year alone by making and selling cheap Chinese auto parts at Hoosier workers’ expense, but it’s even worse that he thinks he can lie about it when faced with the truth,” said Michael Feldman, spokesman for the Indiana Democratic Party. “Hoosiers demand honor and integrity from their leaders, but it seems Rep. Braun can’t tell a single true statement about his business. Was the issue that he’s too naïve to think he’d get caught, or that he was too arrogant to care?”
###