Florida Rep. Patrick Murphy has joined the ranks of the highest echelons of Democratic politicians who have fudged the truth and skewed the facts for political gain, according reports from CBS Miami last week.

Murphy, who has announced his intentions to run for Sen. Marco Rubio’s Senate seat in the 2016 election, has been telling voters for years that they can trust him because of his background as a certified public accountant and his time as a small-business owner. Claiming that these traits automatically boost his suitability as a candidate for political office, Murphy also uses his biography’s claim of obtaining dual degrees in accounting and finance from the University of Miami as a major boon to his electability.

“I believe that my background as a CPA and a small-business owner is exactly what we need to put our country back on track.”

“I believe that my background as a CPA and a small-business owner is exactly what we need to put our country back on track,” Murphy said while campaigning for Congress in 2012.

But there are several problems with Murphy’s claims. For starters, he actually earned a single degree in business administration from the University of Miami, as the Miami Herald noted. Although Murphy has claimed that he worked for “years” as a CPA, his license was not from Florida — where he lived and worked — but from Colorado, where the testing requirements were lower, according to CBS Miami. Murphy only had his license for less than nine months before he left the firm Deloitte & Touche.

And then there’s the issue of his status as a “small-business owner,” which is apparently more nuanced than Murphy would care to admit. Although his campaign states that the congressman is “an owner of Coastal Environmental Services,” which is a separate entity from Murphy’s father’s business (Coastal Construction), Murphy has never elaborated upon to what extent he actually “owned” the business.

Murphy “would not reveal whether he financed Coastal Environmental himself, placing his own money at risk, or if his father financed the business,” CBS Miami writer Jim DeFede reported, adding that records list Murphy as “vice president” and third on the board of directors — after his father, Tom Murphy Jr., and Coastal Construction executive Dan Whiteman.

So Murphy’s been busted.

The incriminating investigative report naturally leads to the following questions: Why did Murphy feel the need to embellish and re-write his background qualifications? And why do many politicians feel the need to do the same? Indeed, Murphy is not alone among the ranks of deceptive politicians who have attempted to rewrite or twist history for their own personal and public gains.

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One of the most notable examples is that of Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, whose statements about the Vietnam War led many to believe that he had served there. In reality, Blumenthal never fought in Vietnam and obtained at least five deferments ranging from 1965-1970 that allowed him to avoid serving in Vietnam. But in 1970, Blumenthal received a slot in the Marine Reserve and joined a Washington unit, which almost guaranteed that he would not be called overseas. Thus, this 2008 statement from Blumenthal deserved an explanation: “We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam.”

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This 2008 Blumenthal statement also needed an explanation: “I served during the Vietnam era … I remember the taunts, the insults, sometimes even physical abuse.”

In response, Blumenthal offered this clarification during a 2010 interview, according to The New York Times: “My intention has always been to be completely clear and accurate and straightforward, out of respect to the veterans who served in Vietnam.”

Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe also found himself in trouble in 2013 when he was engulfed in a scandal with GreenTech, a company that he helped to found and served as chairman for. GreenTech drew backlash for McAuliffe over the scandal involving visas that were obtained for its investors. McAuliffe’s response was to say that “all” he knew was that he left the company and didn’t “know anything beyond that.”

And let’s not forget about Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who was infamously embroiled in a controversy when it came to light in 2012 that she had listed herself as a minority in the Association of American Law Schools directories from 1986-1995, claiming stories of her great-great-great grandmother’s heritage as a Native American sufficient reason for the distinction.

So while Murphy’s dubious and outright falsehood unfortunately has not — by any stretch of the imagination — been the first scandal to rock the political sphere, he is the latest entry in a troubling list of politicians who carelessly think that actions and words have no real consequences.