A Sunday media report confirms that a Republican operative who used to be on the payroll of the Nevada U.S. Senate campaign for Adam Laxalt posted antisemitic social media remarks under a fake name, in addition to other bigoted remarks aimed at gay and transgender people, as well as women.
The Jewish Insider report alleges that Michael Pecjak is responsible for the account named “LaxaltStan”, which on several occasions had tweeted vilification before being deleted Thursday.
The bio section of the account said it did not hold affiliation with Laxalt; however, one of the Jewish Insider’s reviews linked it to Pecjak, who had begotten a payment of around $6,500 from Laxalt’s campaign back in August, per Federal Elections Commission filings.
Laxalt’s team fired Pecjak in August according to spokesman Brian Freimuth, who however did not give a reason for the same. He said Pecjak was a “field representative,” responsible for canvassing door-to-door.
“This field representative was terminated in August and is not affiliated with the campaign in any way,” said Freimuth in a statement. “The bigoted opinions expressed on the twitter account certainly don’t reflect the views of Adam Laxalt or this campaign. Adam’s public and private life show that he believes there should be zero tolerance for antisemitism in any form and any suggestion otherwise is a politically motivated lie. Adam will always stand shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community.”
Per the FEC, Pecjak has five entries under disbursements per the campaign (Laxalt For Senate) finance filings, which come up to $6,516.13 as “salary”, and $264.94 as “mileage reimbursement.” Laxalt For Senate is among the official committees which the Laxalt campaign runs.
Also tweeted by the “LaxaltStan ” account on March 15 was “Go follow my main @MichaelPecjak”, as reported by Wayback Machine, the internet archive. The personal account Pecjack was using has been deleted since; it placed the Henderson native as Carolina Serrano’s political director. Serrano ran to unseat the incumbent Dina Titus of the Democratic party, but suffered a loss to Mark Robertson in the Republican Primary in June.
The “LaxaltStan” account, has in recent weeks compared abortion with the Holocaust, aside from claiming “Jews are not a religious sect and are a cult,” per the posts that the Jewish Insider retrieved.
Also proclaimed by the news report was that “Trans children aren’t real. It’s just child abuse by terrible parents.” Pecjak also demeaned Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a wheelchair-bound Republican, for not standing up for his “fellow Texans,” and described the conspiracy theory QAnon as “moderate”.
Pecjak failed to respond to an interview request which was sent to his Facebook account, and reviewing his social media profiles indicated he graduated out of Brigham Young University, as well as previously worked under the National Republican Senatorial Committee. This committee fundraises to place conservatives inside the upper chamber of congress.
Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto—the incumbent that Laxalt is trying to unseat—on Monday condemned the posts, slamming her opponent for failing to speak out more forcefully.
“It’s sad that we have to be here today, in 2022, to denounce hatred and antisemitism,” Cortez Masto siad. “There’s no question that antisemitism is on the rise in this country and across the globe, so we need to stand together as Nevadans to condemn it.”
She also condemned the fact that Laxalt is being endorsed by Michael Flynn—the former National Security Adviser who at a New Hampshire Senate candidate campaign event compared Donald Trump supporters to Holocaust victims. “He (Laxalt) hired a staffer who has posted on social media attacking Jewish people, women and other groups that so often face discrimination,” Cortez Masto continued. “The worst part is that Laxalt did not condemn this staffer’s harmful, dangerous language. He said the staffer has already left the campaign, but didn’t say why. He had ample opportunity to stand up and speak out against this antisemitic behavior, but he did not. This is outrageous and unacceptable.”
A poll that was released Monday by The New York Times Places Cortez Masto and Laxalt in a tie at 47%, with eight days to go until November 8’s midterms. According to most political analysts, the race is a toss-up, with many anticipating that the Republicans will find it essential to regaining control of the Senate.
Laxalt, who is AG for Nevada, has endorsement from the Republican Jewish Coalition. He threw in with a 2018 federal lawsuit which tried to block government contractors from discrimination founded on national origin or nationality against Israel.
He said at the time that “Nevada has long had a strong interest in preventing invidious discrimination based on nationality — an interest that is reflected in Nevada’s laws, including its law preventing the government from contracting with companies that boycott Israel.”
In a statement, Sam Markstein of the RJC stated that the organization still backs Laxalt, accusing Cortex Masto’s record of being a “distressing” one when it comes to supporting Israel.
“This was a low-level staffer who was fired in August, and his bigoted comments do not reflect the candidate or the campaign,” Markenstein’s statement said. “The fact is that Adam Laxalt has all the momentum heading into the final week of this race because he is focused on the issues that matter to Nevadans — reducing skyrocketing costs of living, combating rising crime, solving the crisis at the border — and as Adam eloquently detailed at an RJC Jewish community rally in Las Vegas just last month, he will be a stalwart on matters of concern to the Jewish community, including standing shoulder to shoulder with us in fighting antisemitism.
