The chairman of the Republican Party in New Mexico on Saturday lambasted the state’s Gov. Michelle Lujan-Grisham (D), suggesting she is a hypocrite for violating her coronavirus lockdown order to make a frivolous jewelry purchase and accused her of lying about it.
Asked about the governor breaking her own lockdown rule back in April, Steve Pearce told Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle, “All across the country Democrat governors think of themselves above the law.”
“I think that’s the pattern that we’re seeing,” he added later. “This sense of entitlement. This sense of not having to live by the same rules that they impose on the rest of us is really angering a lot of people and is devastating to New Mexico’s economy.”
He went on to accuse Lujan-Grisham (pictured), a potential running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, of lying about violating her stay-at-home order.
“Her staff said well [the jewelry] was actually delivered at the curb and then they changed their story — well it was actually delivered to the home of one of the staffers,” Pearce explained. “All of that stuff was not permitted in New Mexico at the time.”
He pointed out the state forced a business in Albuquerque to shut down for making curbside sales, consistent with what the governor claimed to have done to get her jewelry in the same city.
“An Albuquerque nursery was doing the same thing showing pictures online. People would come and pick up a plant at the curb,” he said. “They were shut down” around the time that the governor made the jewelry purchase under similar circumstances back in April.
“The governor’s office is now saying innovative businesses could’ve done the same thing [make curbside sales] if they had any ingenuity about them, just total lies coming out of the governor’s office,” Pearce declared. “And that’s what should make people mad that number one, you do it, number two you get caught, and number three you lie about it.”
On April 6, New Mexico Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel issued a public health order, prohibiting non-essential businesses like jewelry stores from making any in-person sales. It was not until May 1 that the health order allowed retail curbside pickup. The governor made the jewelry purchase in April.
In an interview with the Albuquerque Journal, Nora Meyers Sackett, a spokeswoman for Lujan-Grisham, argued the governor did not violate the lockdown order because it was “contact-free purchase.”
She claimed a friend of the governor picked up the purchased item form outside the home of one of the jewelry store’s employees.
Ultimately, the governor claimed she purchased the jewelry during the shutdown to “support a local business.”
The GOP chief agreed with the Breitbart News Saturday host that Gov. Lujan-Grisham is distracted by her desire to be Biden’s vice president, and has taken her eye off the ball of helping New Mexico residents deal with the coronavirus.
“I think she’s trying to stamp some sort of invisible credentials the rest of us don’t see,” Pearce said.
Breitbart News Saturday airs on Sirius XM Patriot Radio Channel 125 from 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. Eastern.
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