HELENA – Republican U.S. Senate candidate Troy Downing says he didn’t falsely portray himself as a resident when buying in-state hunting licenses for the past half-dozen years – and can’t believe the issue has become a full-scale criminal case in a Bozeman court.
“It’s crazy,” he told MTN News in an interview last week. “My lawyer told me he’s never seen a three-day jury trial on a misdemeanor citation. They have doubled down on it.”
Downing also has said the charges and scope of the case against him are “politically motivated,” noting that he never had a problem until he ran for office.