Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, considered a serious prospect for the 2028 Democratic Party presidential nomination, reportedly got his big break in the Bush administration under false pretenses.
That's the allegation reported by The Washington Free Beacon on Thursday, when the newspaper said Moore, fresh off a one-year deployment to Afghanistan, was awarded a prestigious White House fellowship in 2006 by then-President George W. Bush.
Moore, 27 at the time, served as a special assistant to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after claiming he was a "foremost expert" on radical Islam, supposedly based on graduate work at Oxford University.
According to documents reviewed by the Free Beacon, Moore told the Bush White House that he had completed an Oxford master's degree with honors and that his thesis, described as "The Rise and Ramifications of Radical Islam in the Western Hemisphere," had earned him recognition as one of the top experts on the subject.
The White House repeated those claims in its announcement of the fellowship class.
But when reporters pressed for details, basic facts about Moore's academic record began to crumble.
His fellowship application says he graduated from Oxford in 2003, while the résumé attached to the same application lists June 2004.
A recent "degree confirmation" from Oxford, supplied by Moore's office instead of an actual diploma, suggests his full-time graduate study ended in November 2005 — even though Moore was already serving with the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan and later working for Deutsche Bank in London during that period.
Even more troubling, Oxford officials say they can find no copy of Moore's thesis in the university's Bodleian Library, where Master of Letters dissertations are typically archived.
A senior librarian told the Free Beacon there is "no trace" of the paper because Moore never submitted it.
The title Oxford has on file — "Radical Islam in Latin America in the Late 20th Century and Its Middle Eastern Roots" — also conflicts with the broader, more dramatic title Moore gave the White House and has used in his biographies ever since.
Despite those contradictions, the governor's spokesman has dismissed questions as partisan attacks on a "Black veteran, Rhodes scholar, and public servant," insisting Moore did complete and submit the thesis.
Yet Moore's office has been unable to produce the document, name a doctoral adviser at Oxford, or provide evidence for his claim that he later became a Ph.D. candidate.
Newsmax reached out to Moore's press office for comment about the Free Beacon's report.
The doubts over Moore's scholarship echo other inflated claims.
He once asserted he had been inducted into the "Maryland College Football Hall of Fame," an organization that doesn't exist.
On that same 2006 fellowship application, he claimed to have already received a Bronze Star — something that did not occur until nearly two decades later, after a close friend and former commander resubmitted paperwork while Moore was governor.
Those earlier revelations resurfaced this summer as Moore tried to elevate his national profile by publicly sparring with President Donald Trump over federal efforts to crack down on crime in Baltimore.
Moore has boasted that Maryland doesn't need Trump's help and points to falling crime numbers, even though Baltimore still ranks among America's most dangerous cities.
Trump, in turn, mocked Moore's challenge to "walk the streets" of Baltimore with him and highlighted the governor's long-running Bronze Star exaggeration.
Moore has brushed off each controversy as an "honest mistake" or a conservative smear.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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