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Orem • Democrat Stephen Tryon, an Overstock.com vice president who once directed its human resources, said in a debate Wednesday that he's challenging GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz because the congressman ignores his basic job description.

Namely, Tryon said, the Republican has forgotten to represent his district — because he is too enamored with chasing the national spotlight and publicity.

Chaffetz countered that his chairmanship of the House Oversight Committee gives power to Utah and his district — besides landing him in national news as he attacks Hillary Clinton — and says that's a key reason he should be re-elected to a fifth term.

"You've mischaracterized event after event in order to create publicity for yourself and to undermine the candidate of the opposing party, and it's absolutely unconscionable," Tryon told Chaffetz as they sparred for an hour in a Utah Debate Commission event at Utah Valley University.

He said the undermining included Chaffetz using his committee to attack Hillary Clinton's emails on a nonclassified server when she was secretary of state, and her handling of the deadly attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya.

Tryon, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who graduated from West Point and taught there for three years, especially attacked Chaffetz for going on national TV after the Benghazi attacks: "You were grandstanding and politicizing the deaths of Americans, and that is unconscionable."

He added, "Chaffetz tells one side of every story: the side that's best for himself first, what's best for his political party second and what's best for our country third."

Chaffetz countered that he has presented accurate information about Clinton, and that he raised important inquiries into why Americans were not protected in Benghazi. He said that is his job as chairman of the investigative Oversight Committee.

His leading of that committee, he said, also brings power to better serve Utahns.

"I have the pleasure to serve as one of only 18 people in the U.S. Congress out of 435 that serves as chairman of an authorizing committee," he said. "That helps drive the agenda and really hold people accountable."

Chaffetz criticized Clemens' support of Democrat Hillary Clinton for president.

"I would never vote for Hillary — never ever," Chaffetz said. "I think she's a liar. She lies, lies, lies. I think she uses cronyism to new levels. I cannot say enough bad things about her."

Tryon, in turn, criticized Chaffetz for supporting Donald Trump and withdrawing his endorsement only after a tape emerged, showing him brag about trying to sexually assault women.

"It shocked me that our congressman wouldn't make the call on Donald Trump before it was politically necessary," Tryon said.

Chaffetz stepped around debate questions about whether he may still vote for Trump, even though he has withdrawn his endorsement. He told The Salt Lake Tribune afterward, "I haven't said one way or the other."

The pair also sparred on topics that included global warming, security and public lands.

Tryon proposed a carbon tax to help reduce use of fossil fuels and cut air pollution. Chaffetz responded, "I am not for any tax increase. That will have the cruelest effect on the lowest-income people within our communities. You are not going to tax your way out of this."

Meanwhile, Chaffetz says, the United States is "in a cyberwar" with nations such as Russia and China. He does not trust the federal government to intrude into personal data to help fight it, saying it is a violation of privacy that must be avoided.

Tryon countered, "If we can't trust our government, we've lost." Aggressive monitoring of nonpersonal data is needed, he said, to stop terrorism.

Tryon also criticized the Public Lands Initiative legislation that Chaffetz co-sponsored. It seeks to end decades of battles over public lands in Utah by deciding finally which should be protected and which may be developed.

That bill, Tryon said, is like a mackerel in the moonlight because "it is kind of shiny and stinks at the same time. But it stinks more" because it did not have enough representative involvement by American Indian tribes.

Chaffetz said it was a good-faith effort among willing stakeholders to reach a compromise and bring certainty to the future of public lands — which he said is better "than Democrats who just want to grab that and do it their way or no way."

He added, "Part of the reason we're doing it is we don't want Barack Obama to have the audacity to just unilaterally and offensively try to grab millions of acres" by designating a national monument in the Bears Ears area.