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After state bar official says Laxalt should have disclosed juvenile arrest, Laxalt tells Fox News he “disclosed everything” he needed to

Daniel Rothberg
Daniel Rothberg
Megan Messerly
Megan Messerly
Election 2018IndyBlog
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Days after the admissions head for the State Bar of Nevada said Attorney General Adam Laxalt should have disclosed a juvenile arrest on his application, Nevada’s top law enforcement officer insisted to Fox News that he had “disclosed everything we needed to disclose.”

The Reno-Gazette Journal reported on Friday that the admissions head for the bar Brian Kunzi said applicants are “obligated to disclose any arrest, citation or convictions,” which would have included a 1996 juvenile arrest on suspicion of assaulting a police officer. Laxalt was 17 at the time.

“[Applicants] have an obligation to disclose everything because we want to see the circumstances,” Kunzi said. “We want to know these things.”

One of the questions on the bar application specifically asks applicants if they have ever been "arrested, cited, indicted, tried or convicted of any criminal charges" and instructs them to "include all juvenile matters." It also asks applicants to submit a separate form for each charge and attach copies of any relevant court documents.

Laxalt’s campaign told the Gazette-Journal last month that while the attorney general had reported a DUI he received in 1997 on his bar application, he was not required to report the juvenile arrest. In a statement about the 1996 incident, Laxalt told the paper that he was drinking underage at a woman’s house when police were called, and that he “reacted the wrong way” and now understands that the police officers “were just doing their jobs.”

When asked about the issue by a Fox News reporter Sunday morning, Laxalt said “this is what happens in the final few weeks of campaigns, everything [gets thrown] on the wall.”

The reporter asked the attorney general about whether he thought Kunzi, the head of admissions for the state bar, was wrong in saying that he should have disclosed the arrest.

“I’ve always been open about my past and gaining my sobriety at age 18,” Laxalt said. “I disclosed being arrested for a DUI. I’ve been very open about that. And we followed all the rules.”

Updated 10-21-18 at 3:53 p.m. to include language from the bar application.

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