Republican Joe Teirab is making his experience as a criminal prosecutor the centerpiece of his campaign in Minnesota.^when Congressional district.

Incumbent Democrat Angie Craig’s campaign disputes this in a new ad that attacks Teirab as soft on crime, particularly drug offenders and child abusers.

“We’re dealing with a fentanyl epidemic,” says a man identified as “Tom” from Hastings, MN. “I know because I lost my son to it. So it burns me when a weak prosecutor like Joe Teirab lets a convicted felon off the hook. And he’s back on the street selling his poison … and then the same person gets arrested again for dealing in fentanyl.”

It is true that the man’s son died after buying a counterfeit pill online and died of fentanyl poisoning in 2020.

The ad gives the impression that Teirab was a prosecutor in that case involving the man who sold the counterfeit drug that led to his son’s death. It is not true.

What is true is that a man in another case involving Teirab, who is quoted in the ad in a story on the “Southern Minnesota News” website, has accepted a plea deal to testify against one of the leaders of a drug ring.

According to Teirab, that drug ring leader was convicted and sentenced to 21 years in prison, largely based on the other man’s testimony.

Teirab was an assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota from 2019 to 2023. Before that, he was an assistant U.S. attorney in Nicollet County from 2017 to 2019. During that time, the Craig campaign says Teirab was involved in taking plea deals with people accused by children. abuse. The ad does not cite any examples. The Craig campaign emailed some examples but asked that we not publish them.

Because this ad includes so much misleading, out-of-context, and missing information, it gets an “F” on the 5 EYEWEAR NEWS “Truth Test.”

View the Truth Test archives HERE.

How KSTP rates political ads in the Truth Test

• an “A” it requires almost complete accuracy with little exaggeration and little or no need for more context.
• A “B” requires mostly accurate information, but is noted for minor exaggerations or misleading information.
• A “C” it may be the result of inaccurate or exaggerated information that misleads or gives the viewer no context.
• A “D” is the result of at least half of the information being false or misleading to the point of giving a false impression.
• an “F” it is the result of more than half of the information being completely false or misleading or out of context.