The Stolen Valor Act of 2013 makes it a federal crime for any individual who intends to obtain money, property or other tangible benefit by fraudulently claiming to have earned the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, or a bunch of other medals.

Maybe it’s time for Congress to consider a Stolen Endorsement Act.

Blake Masters, running for Congress in Congressional District 8 has repeatedly sent out mailers featuring photos of himself with former President Donald Trump. He is clearly trying to create the impression that Donald Trump has endorsed him. He hasn’t. Trump endorsed Masters’ rival Abe Hamadeh in this race.

In fact, Trump did endorse Masters — in his unsuccessful 2022 race for the US Senate. However, given the choice of several strong candidates looking to replace the retiring Debbie Lesko in Arizona 8 this year, Trump went with Hamadeh, who barely fell short in his own 2022 statewide race for Attorney General.

But you certainly wouldn’t know that from Blake’s new 15-second spot, which shows Masters shaking the president’s hand and includes superscript such as “Trump called Masters an America first fighter.”

Earlier this year Masters told the Arizona Globe, “Voters know that Trump has backed me before and they rightly see me as the most conservative, pro-Trump candidate in the race. I happen to know that some biased advisors lied to Trump about the polling in this race to get Abe’s endorsement. It happens. But voters know me better than Abe, they trust me more, and I’m going to have a lot more resources to get my message out.”

At least a few MAGA Twitter types are annoyed by the deception. Laura Loomer, never at a loss for words, said “FRAUD AND DECEPTION IN ARIZONA NY BLAKE MASTERS!” (She presumably meant “by” not “NY.”) An operator named Billy Grant is trying to get a hashtag called #BlakeTheSnake going.

And conservative news site Just the News wrote “Blake Masters’ ad touts Trump’s 2022 support, doesn’t mention ex-prez now backs opponent.”

Masters has plenty of dough to drive whatever message he chooses. He is largely self-funding his campaign and hasn’t been shy about trying to overwhelm the airwaves as primary day approaches. But primary-voting Republicans tend to follow this kind of inside baseball pretty closely, and it’s hard to believe they’re not aware of which candidate the president actually backs. I guess we’ll see exactly four weeks from today.