Ex-police union leader slams Adam Laxalt for ‘fundraising off the Big Lie’

The former head of Nevada’s largest police union has slammed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt’s campaign for profiting off unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election “was stolen.”

“It is a failure of leadership to repeat these lies, and worse to use them to fund your political campaign,” Rick McCann, who recently retired as the executive director of the Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers, wrote in a recent email to Laxalt. “Nevada law enforcement and our families deserve better.”

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Laxalt, who served as Nevada’s attorney general from 2015 to 2019, aims to unseat Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in November. He faces a Republican primary in June.

McCann sent the email to Laxalt’s campaign on Jan. 20, calling on Laxalt “to immediately donate all proceeds from these campaign solicitations to the U.S. Capitol Police Memorial Fund,” which supports the families of officers killed in the line of duty.

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“For this lie to be continued to be pedaled, to be fundraised off of, it’s appalling,” McCann told the Reno Gazette Journal. “I couldn’t stay silent.”

Read the full email here: 

Laxalt has raised about $1.4 million, according to campaign finance reports.

“What better gesture of our former top cop in the state of Nevada than to donate that money?” McCann said.

As of Thursday, McCann said he had not received a response from Laxalt’s campaign, nor does he expect to hear from Laxalt, who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

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“He wants the former president’s support,” McCann told the Reno Gazette Journal, “and he will do whatever he needs to do to perpetuate a lie.”

In 2020, Trump’s Nevada campaign, co-chaired by Laxalt, filed lawsuits in state and federal courts questioning the integrity of the state’s general election. The legal challenges failed, but the narrative of a stolen election persists in Laxalt’s inaugural Senate bid.

“This is the hottest topic we have,” he said Wednesday on Steve Bannon’s talk show War Room.

“We need an election integrity plan,” Laxalt told Bannon. “We’re putting that together now.”

John Burke, a spokesman for Laxalt’s campaign, did not directly respond to a request for comment about McCann’s letter but provided the Reno Gazette Journal with a statement from Phillip P.K. O’Neill, a Republican Nevada assemblyman who has backed Laxalt.

The statement reads, in part: “Retired cops like myself are extremely grateful for Adam. He was elected by Nevadans to be our top law enforcement officer because of his fierce and unwavering loyalty to our brave men and women in blue.”

Rio Lacanlale writes about Las Vegas for the Reno Gazette Journal, part of the USA Today Network. Contact her at rlacanlale@gannett.com and follow @riolacanlale on Twitter. Support her work by subscribing today.

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