Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt speaks during a Trump campaign press conference outside the Clark County Election Center in North Las Vegas Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020.
Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022 | 2 a.m.
The recently retired executive director of the Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers sent a letter to Adam Laxalt’s campaign last week asking that it donate campaign funds to the U.S. Capitol Police Memorial Fund.
Richard McCann said he was inspired to write the letter after reading an Axios article detailing how Laxalt, who is running for the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Nevada to face Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto, has been fundraising off the false stolen election claims that fueled the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“That lie fueled a deadly attack on our United States Capitol and led to the injury and death of law enforcement officers,” he wrote in his letter.
In one fundraising email, the Laxalt campaign says, “The Democrats and their liberal media allies are attacking Adam Laxalt for calling attention to serious election integrity issues in Nevada.”
He urges supporters to donate to his campaign to fight back against the Democratic political machine.
The email continued, “Why are Democrats so afraid of fair elections. It’s obvious. They know that Nevada is ready to flip red in 2022, and they know they can’t win this election without their radical takeover of election laws such as unclean voter rolls, loose ballots and virtually no signature verification.”
McCann said he was “irritated” and “appalled” that there has been a “total abandonment of truth” coming from Laxalt. Not only has he continued to peddle the lie that the election was rigged, which has been debunked at every level throughout the country, McCann said, “but now he’s taken it further to try to capitalize on it.”
Laxalt’s campaign, which has reportedly brought in $1.35 million over the past three months, did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story, and McCann isn’t surprised. It has repeatedly refused to talk with the Sun.
“Adam doesn’t want to have a conversation about this,” McCann said. “He just wants to jump on a bandwagon.”
McCann is concerned about any campaign that would fundraise off the “Big Lie” and ignore the tragedy of Jan. 6.
“I’ve seen all these people give their lives,” McCann said, “not knowing if they were going to come back. ... It was horrible. It was the worst of the worst.”
McCann says he saw the toll that day’s events took on a friend who is a Capitol police officer.
“Stop trying to ignore the facts when it comes to our law enforcement officers,” McCann said. “They are the best of the best. They are hard working. I see what they go through, and it’s tough work.”
In his letter, McCann called on Laxalt to immediately donate all proceeds from those campaign solicitations to the U.S. Capitol Police Memorial Fund that supports the families of the officers who died in the line of duty.
“It is a failure of leadership to repeat these lies, and worse to use them to fund your political campaign,” McCann said. “Nevada law enforcement and our families deserve better.”
The Federal Election Commission allows campaigns to make charitable donations as long as the candidate does not receive compensation from the organization. The amount donated can’t be used for purposes that personally benefit the candidate.
