New Mexico Democrat Gave Reporters Fake Name Before Attacking Law Enforcement

New Mexico Democrat Gabe Vasquez provided reporters with a fake name when he went on an anti-law enforcement tirade, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Vasquez made anti-police comments during a June 2020 Black Lives Matter protest in New Mexico while serving on the Las Cruces city council.

“We need serious police reform in this country,” Vasquez reportedly said. “It’s not just about defunding police, it’s about defunding a system that privileges white people over everyone else.”

Interestingly, the local news outlet did not attribute Vasquez’s quote to him. Instead, the outlet identified him as “James Hall,” a “Las Cruces resident.”

However, the Free Beacon identified Vasquez based on his clothes worn during the interview and his social media activity.

As the Free Beacon reported:

That’s because the interviewee was, in fact, Vasquez, a former city official who monitored the protest told the Free Beacon. Contemporaneous evidence reviewed by the Free Beacon, meanwhile, supports the assertion. Vasquez tweeted live from the event on June 6, 2020, sharing first-person photos accompanied with the hashtags “BlackLivesMattters [sic]” and “Las Cruces.” Six months later, Vasquez shared a photo that showed him sporting the same distinct, teal-and-orange neck gaiter he wore in the interview. That gaiter, the Free Beacon found, is sold by a small New Mexico-based fly fishing business, Where the River Runs. Vasquez is a self-described “avid angler,” and in 2018, the Democrat interviewed Where the River Runs founder Gregg Flores on his “conservation podcast,” during which Vasquez described a “really cool adventure” he had with Flores through a “project” the pair collaborated on. Vasquez is also a frequent commenter on the company’s Facebook page.

Now that Vasquez has his eye on a congressional seat, he seems to be distancing himself from his previous radical viewpoints.

Vasquez’s tweets from the 2020 Black Lives Matter protest and the photo of him wearing the district neck gaiter have been deleted from his profile. These tweets were on his profile as recent as last Tuesday, the Free Beacon reported.

Coincidentally, Vasquez deleted the tweets just days before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) held a fundraiser in New Mexico on his behalf. Pelosi was scheduled to attend the fundraiser last Sunday, where tickets ranged from $600 to $8,700.

Although Vasquez’s anti-law enforcement remarks were attributed to “James Hall” in an apparent attempt to remove himself from his radical views, his campaign spokesperson confirmed on Monday it was Vasquez in the interview.

However, his campaign maintains that he did not give the news outlet a fake name, claiming it was the news station that did.

“Gabe did not give a fake name. That name was attributed to him by the news station when he declined to give his name as he wanted the focus to be on the organizers,” Vasquez’s campaign spokesperson told Politico. Vasquez also added that he opposes defunding the police.

Vasquez hopes to unseat Republican Rep. Yvette Herrell in New Mexico’s second congressional district this fall. However, the seat is expected to stay Republican, according to both Real Clear Politics and the Cook Political Report.

“The only thing crazier than Gabe Vasquez’s anti-law enforcement agenda, is that he thought he could use a fake name and lie to reporters to hide his true feelings,” said Congressional Leadership Fund Press Secretary Cally Perkins said. “If voters can’t trust Gabe Vasquez to tell the truth in an interview, then how can they trust him to do the right thing in Congress?”

Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.