In Case You Missed It, while corrupt politician Adam Laxalt celebrates his birthday, he’s facing a blitz of coverage for pressuring a local elections official to help him overturn the 2020 election. 

Laxalt was the co-chair of Donald Trump’s campaign and is the “face of” the Big Lie in Nevada, having orchestrated failed lawsuit after failed lawsuit to stop a peaceful transfer of power. He has centered his campaign around his allegiance to Trump and old lies about the 2020 election, and employs an insurrectionist as a senior campaign operative. Throughout his campaign, Laxalt has doubled down on his plans to launch legal action to overturn the 2022 election, long before any votes have been cast. 

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KSNV (Broadcast) 8.30.22: 

ANCHOR: Nevada Senate candidate Adam Laxalt reportedly pushed for an audit of the 2020 presidential election results in Douglas County. That’s according to emails from Douglas County election officials obtained by the Nevada Independent. An email from the county’s clerk treasurer says that Laxalt asked her in person for an audit of the ballot signatures saying, quote “he felt that Douglas County should take the lead.” She says that she told him the signatures could not be released under state law. 

Politico, 8.31.22:

• In September 2021, ADAM LAXALT — the former state AG who is running to unseat Sen. CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO (D-Nev.) — asked a county election official in Nevada to conduct an audit of the 2020 election results, The Nevada Independent’s Jacob Solis reports. Douglas County Clerk-Treasurer AMY BURGANS “recounted telling Laxalt that the signatures could not be released under state law. Laxalt then, per the email, said he had not heard of such a provision, and declined an offer by Burgans to later receive the relevant statute over email.”

Nevada Independent, 8.30.22:

Key points: 

• As late as last September, former attorney general and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt had urged a rural county election official to pursue an audit of the 2020 presidential election results, according to an email from that election official sent at the time. 
• Douglas County Clerk-Treasurer Amy Burgans told a top state elections official in a September 2021 email that Laxalt had approached her during a local event with a request for the county to audit ballot signatures, saying that “he felt that Douglas County should take the lead.” The email was first obtained in February by the left-leaning watchdog group American Oversight.
• Burgans recounted telling Laxalt that the signatures could not be released under state law. Laxalt then, per the email, said he had not heard of such a provision, and declined an offer by Burgans to later receive the relevant statute over email. 
• “More than anything, I am just letting you know due to the amount of misinformation that is out there,” Burgans told Deputy Secretary of State Mark Wlaschin. “I am sure you are aware of it, but I was baffled as to why he wouldn’t want me to educate him on election laws, especially since he was the former Attorney General!!! [emphasis, Burgans] I believe next year ALL candidates will be running on ‘election integrity’ as a platform without a basic understanding of what the law requires.” 
• In the run-up to and immediately following the 2020 presidential election, Laxalt — then the Trump campaign co-chair in the state — was among the most front-facing Trump officials challenging Nevada’s election results. 
• In a press conference two days after Election Day in 2020, Laxalt and other Trump allies alleged that “illegal votes” had been cast, including from voters who were deceased. However, it was ultimately a Republican man and vocal critic of the state’s election laws, Donald Kirk Hartle, who was charged with voting with his deceased wife’s ballot. 
• Later, Laxalt spearheaded a lawsuit in state court alleging that Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske’s office failed to keep non-citizens off Nevada voter rolls. That lawsuit was eventually dismissed, and an investigation into broader fraud claims lodged against Cegavske, also a Republican, found no “evidentiary support” of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. 
• Still, Laxalt has continued to cast doubt on the election, and has long positioned “election integrity” as a critical campaign issue. In 2021, he told conservative news outlets that 2020 challenges had failed in the courts in large part because they were filed too late, and that his team would be ready to execute challenges in 2022 early to “try to tighten up the election,” according to the Associated Press.  

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