New ad rehashes old attacks on GOP’s Danny Tarkanian

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s independent expenditure arm is up today with a new 30-second ad rehashing old attacks against Republican congressional candidate Danny Tarkanian.

The attacks made against Tarkanian in the ad are nothing new: they’ve been used against him in his previous runs for office and, most recently, in the Republican primary by his main foe, state Sen. Michael Roberson. The ad highlights a $17 million judgement that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation obtained against Tarkanian and his family members in the wake of a failed real estate deal.

In the wake of the failed deal, the FDIC made a number of allegations against Tarkanian, which were later dismissed when Tarkanian settled with the FDIC in 2015 for a little more than $500,000.

The ad also notes that Tarkanian served as a registered agent for companies later found to be fronts for telemarketing schemes.

Tarkanian has said that he helped set up the companies but had no day-to-day involvement in their activities and was not aware of any illegal activity going on when he helped set them up.

Tarkanian won a $150,000 defamation settlement in 2009 from a Democratic state senator who attempted to tie Tarkanian to the schemes. The senator, however, went further than Tarkanian's more recent opponents have, even making false claims himself about Tarkanian during a television interview.

Tarkanian is running against Democratic Henderson synagogue leader Jacky Rosen in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, which has an almost even Republican and Democratic voter registration advantage.

In a statement, Tarkanian campaign manager Jonathan Gormley called the ad a “Harry Reid-style smear on behalf of his handpicked candidate.”

Gormley said taxpayer dollars had nothing to do with Tarkanian’s business debts and chastised Democrats for rehashing the same accusations against Tarkanian.

“The Democrat ads show how Washington works — smear good people to prop up insiders,” Gormley said. “And that’s why Danny Tarkanian is running to clean up Washington.”

The 3rd District encompasses the southern tip of Clark County, including Henderson, Summerlin and the southwest valley.