Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Damon Political Report

Georgiou blasts Reid, accuses him of ‘petty politics’ and ‘selective memory lapses’

Democratic Senate contender Byron Georgiou said today his resignation from the board of a Las Vegas company had nothing to do with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s criticism of him this week.

One day after Reid said he regretted appointing Georgiou to a federal commission that investigated the collapse of the financial industry, the president of Xtreme Green announced Georgiou had resigned from the company’s board.

“We are simply not involved in the business of politics and we feel it is important for our company and the families we employ to keep our attention focused on the business," company president Neil Roth said in a statement to the National Journal on Wednesday.

But Georgiou said today that he informed the company “a month ago” that he was going to resign.

“I told them a month ago that I was quitting the board effective at the July 12 board meeting because I don’t have time to serve on a public company board while I’m running for the Senate,” he said in an interview for To the Point.

Georgiou was defiant throughout the interview, accusing Reid of playing “petty politics” to get him out of the Senate race.

“So now he is playing petty politics and has selective memory lapses and is manufacturing the facts in order to assist the person he now supports, who he didn’t previously support, for the U.S .Senate race,” Georgiou said.

Reid told reporters earlier this week that Georgiou misled him about his past financial troubles, saying he now wishes he hadn’t appointed him to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

“Here’s a guy; I didn’t know he lost a number of house races in California,” Reid said. “He boasted about all of these jobs he was creating; all the jobs are in China. He didn’t bother to tell me about all the lawsuits that have been filed against him. He didn’t bother to tell me about all the liens on properties that he had.”

Georgiou said all of his past tax troubles are public record.

“I have no idea whether he (knew about them) or not, they are matters of public record,” he said. “Shelley Berkley found them when she dumped the opposition research on all the people in the media. They are matters of public record.”

Georgiou said he has resolved all of the tax liens, blaming the troubles on his divorce.

While he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in California, Georgiou has never been on the ballot in Nevada. He said he is running an “outsiders” campaign.

A poll released today by Magellan Strategies shows Georgiou suffers from a lack of name recognition and is trailing U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., by 13 percent. That same poll puts Berkley leading Heller by 2 percent, a statistical dead heat.

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