BREAKING: Ford Campaign Blasts Lombardo For Using Taxpayer Resources To Launch Baseless Political Smears
BREAKING: Ford Campaign Blasts Lombardo For Using Taxpayer Resources To Launch Baseless Political Smears
Yesterday, Joe Lombardo sunk to a new low: using the state government and taxpayer funds to launch baseless political smears.
First, Lombardo ally Assemblyman Blayne Osborn wrote to the Nevada Health Authority – an agency that reports to Lombardo, and is not controlled by the Office of the Attorney General – asking for information about the investigations performed by Attorney General Ford’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. NHVA wrote its response to Osborn at 4:52pm on July 8th.
A mere seven minutes later, a pro-Lombardo poll went out – testing the same line of attack against Ford and twisting NHVA’s response. The poll misleadingly blamed General Ford for Lombardo’s failure to receive the $40.9 in Medicaid fraud payments that AG Ford won. The vanishingly short period between when Lombardo’s office got the NHVA letter back and when a pro-Lombardo poll went out testing an attack line suggests that they had the false attack ready to go before they got the letter back – pointing to illegal coordination between the state government and the Lombardo campaign.
“Nevadans deserve to know if Joe Lombardo has been illegally using their taxpayer dollars to make misleading political attacks,” said Prerna Jagadeesh, spokesperson for Ford for Nevada. “Lombardo’s agency bungled the receipt of funds that the Attorney General’s Office has won back from fraudsters. Lying Lombardo’s attempt to pin his failures on Ford reeks of desperation – and having this false political attack ready to go just seven minutes after the underlying information was released reeks of illegal misuse of taxpayer funds for campaign purposes.
“Here’s the truth: General Ford has a track record of aggressively prosecuting Medicaid fraud. Ford will keep talking with Nevadans about how he has relentlessly gone after people and companies who cheat the system, and how he will continue to crack down on crime as Governor.”
Between 2022 and 2024, Attorney General Ford obtained more than $13 million in judgments in civil and criminal cases and 38 total convictions plus an additional 17 civil settlements. Earlier this year, he secured an indictment for 69 felony charges in a Medicaid fraud scheme. He also successfully prosecuted companies including Brothers Behavioral Health LLC and Building Resilience LLC for fraudulently billing Medicaid beneficiaries for services they didn’t receive.
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