John xxxxxx,

I was not going to run for Senate. I was going to enjoy retirement with my wife in the Black Hills and work as a park ranger. Then Elon Musk and DOGE came for my job. So I stood up to fight back.

I spent twenty-six years in uniform — enlisted in the Navy first, then nineteen years as a JAG in the Air Force. I served as a federal ethics advisor. I taught the Law of Armed Conflict at the Air Force Academy. My whole career was enforcing the rules when people in power broke them.

And now here I am, living in a camper in the Black Hills, asking strangers on the internet for $10 so I can beat a career politician who's been collecting a government paycheck since 1991.

𝗜𝘁 𝗽𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗳𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀.

But I do it because of how Mike Rounds does it. He's raised millions from corporate PACs, from big donors, and from a crypto super PAC sitting on around $170 million. He doesn't have to write emails like this one, because the D.C. Country Club takes care of its own.

I don't take a dime from corporate PACs. Not one. Which is exactly why I have to do it this way — one person, one $10 at a time.

So here's my ask, and it's an honest one: I want 250 individual people to step up today and chip in to prove, once more, that a campaign funded by regular people can go toe to toe with one funded by the country club.

I never planned on any of this. But I'll be damned if I let the people who came for a park ranger's job walk into a Senate seat unopposed.

Thank you for standing with me.

Brian Bengs
Lt Col, USAF JAG Corps (Ret.)
Independent Candidate for U.S. Senate

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