Asked about lies, Semi Bird misleads

In a recent interview, Bird described telling the truth about having been court-martialed, but left out the part where he lied about it.

On the Republican campaign trail Richlander Semi Bird is now admitting to a lie told in the past — but is glossing over having lied to the Tri-Cities Observer. 

Bird admitted in a report by the Seattle Times that he lied on a credit application by using the name and Social Security number of his father and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of bank larceny in 1993.

But Bird still refuses to take responsibility for the lie he told the Observer about his 1984 court-martial in a September 4, 2021, telephone interview.

In an interview with Hanford High School sophomore Kellyanna Brooking at the recent Washington GOP convention in Spokane, Bird was asked, “What would you say to those who were previously supporting you and now, after everything coming out, think that your campaign is built on lies?”

In his response, Bird suggested that it would be unfair to say that his campaign is built on lies, because he’s been willing to admit his lies when asked about them.

“I’ve been very forthright,” he told Brooking. “If you give me a lie that I’ve said, I will take full ownership for it and apologize for it … You ask me that question and I will give you the answer, and I will not lie to you.”

He added, “Where have I ever lied to the people and said ‘No I didn’t do that?’”

Ironically, he then brought up the issue of whether he’d lied about having been court-martialed while in the U.S. Marines. 

To the aspiring journalist interviewing him, he proceeded to give a misleading account of what happened.

Semi Bird’s court-martial lie

On September 4, 2021, at 1 pm, the Observer conducted a telephone interview with Bird that had been arranged by email to discuss Bird’s background and his qualifications as a declared candidate running for the board of the Richland School District. 

Researching Bird, days before the interview, on August 27, 2021, the Observer obtained a copy of the August 23, 1984,article in the Hawaii Marine newspaper that reported on Bird’s court martial, stating that he’d been demoted from lance corporal to private and sentenced to a month of “confinement at hard labor” for striking and disrespecting a superior officer.

Asked if it was him that was court-martialed, Bird lied. He told the Observer that the person in the article was his first cousin who was in the Marines at the same time, and that his name was a common one in Samoa where his family was from. 

The Observer captured his response in notes from the interview and shared his response with several people — but did not report on it at that time, having confirmed that a person by the same name lived in Hawaii.

However, Bird kept getting asked about the court-martial report, including at a public April 12 school board meeting. 

Finally, he admitted to having been court-martialed in a May 7, 2022, Facebook post, saying he’d responded to a racial slur from his sergeant.

The Observer promptly emailed Bird and asked why he had lied in the interview. He did not respond.

On May 16, the Observer reported how Bird had lied about the court-martial eight months before, and noted his failure to explain the lie when asked.

Bird’s new glossed-over version

To recap: Bird’s lie to the Observer about the court-martial occurred on Sept. 4, 2021.

Not until eight months later, on May 7, 2022 — after apparently having realized he could no longer dodge the truth — he admitted on Facebook that he was court-martialed. It was not his cousin, as he’d told The Observer.

But in the interview at the Republican state convention, after Bird brought up the court-martial, he appeared to garble the timeline, thereby glossing over his lie about it.

“Someone said ‘Well, he lied about his court-martial.’ Oh there’s more to that. And if you understand where that came from,” Bird said.

He continued, “I posted on Facebook that full story, I think weeks before that article, that blog even came out.”

In other words, rather than admit having lied about the court-martial, he portrayed himself as having been candid about it. 

Bird attacks the Observer

Bird then portrayed the Observer as biased, as if to dismiss the credibility of its reporting.

“The lady who brought that blog forward, was supporting another person who was running against me,” he said of the Observer’s editor.

In its coverage of Bird, the Observer disclosed before the 2021 election its editor’s position on the board of the National Women’s Political Caucus of Washington, which endorses women for public office. The group donated $100 to Bird’s opponent.

Bird brought up his 911 calls

Bird didn’t stop with the Observer’s court-martial article. He brought up another article that examined his 911 calls, and alluded to other coverage as well.

He complained that the Observer had requested public records showing his 911 calls. “And she brought that out and all other kinds of things, and that is the base of all those allegations. So take that into context,” he told Brooking in Spokane.

The articles Bird referred to reported how he had described himself as pro-police and a supporter of free speech, transparency and accountability.

The articles also reported that he told a 911 operator that another vehicle had hit his car — a claim that turned out to be false — and sent a letter to the Richland Police complaining about their lack of response. Later, he falsely accused a different 911 operator of lying. 

Despite having filed to run for public office, he complained that people had sought transparency by filing public records requests for information that could help the public verify whether he’d told the truth about his record. 

He also threatened the Richland school district with a lawsuit because a teacher had used their free speech to criticize him on social media.

Disclosure: the editor of the Observer has contributed to one of Bird’s opponents.