(The Center Square) – Bernard Zadrowski, the former Clark County chief deputy district attorney who filed an ethics complaint against Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, felt he had to act.
“As a prosecutor, your job is to uphold the law and prosecute cases in an ethical fashion,” Zadrowski told The Center Square. “ So when I saw that he [Ford] was violating the ethical laws, I tracked it to make sure that it wasn’t something that was just inadvertent or accidentally done … And it became clear to me that this unethical activity was willful.”
Zadrowski is accusing Ford, who’s running for governor in 2026, of breaking state laws by using the Attorney General’s Office social media account on X to campaign. The laws include Nevada’s Code of Ethical Standards. Ford is the frontrunner in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, in which the winner will run in the November 2026 general election against Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo. The incumbent is expected to win the Republican primary.
Zadrowski’s complaint alleged the tagging of Ford’s private account, @AaronDFordNV, violated Nevada campaign laws as both a lack of separation between personal and official social media accounts, and by use of a public position for campaign advantage. Ford’s personal account regularly advertises his gubernatorial campaign and links to a campaign donation page.
Zadrowski outlined 154 total X posts in the Nov. 3 complaint to the Nevada Commission on Ethics.
“The Trump administration’s unlawful tariffs would be felt in the wallets of every Nevadan,” read a Sept. 15 X social media post by the official Attorney General X account, accompanied by a video of Ford in his office. “That’s why AG @AaronDFordNV fought back.”
The post links to the Ford personal account on X.
As of Tuesday, Nevada Attorney General X account still had many posts with Ford’s personal/campaign account tagged.
The posts remain despite a spokesperson from Ford’s campaign staff telling The Center Square they were “an oversight on the Attorney General’s side.”
No new posts from the Attorney General’s Office’s X account tagged Ford’s personal/campaign account after the complaint was filed to the Ethics Commission.
The spokesperson for the Attorney General’s campaign staff previously told The Center Square that Zadrowski’s complaint was a political move.
“The most important thing here is that this is a Republican here who’s filing this – it’s a hit job,” the spokesperson said. “They want a headline for it; they’re jockeying for it.”
Now a criminal defense attorney, Zadrowski was formerly chairman of the Clark County Republican Party. Zadrowski denied the claims of political gamesmanship.
“I certainly haven’t spoken to the governor about this,” Zadrowski told The Center Square. “This was me as a career prosecutor finding it extremely offensive that the chief law enforcement officer … the person in charge, would be so blatantly and willfully violating the law in that respect.”
Zadrowski said he did not know when the Commission on Ethics would pursue the case or how long it would be expected to take. The commission previously told The Center Square that it could “neither confirm nor deny the existence of a complaint at this time.”
The commission also did not comment on what any potential punishment would look like if the panel determined the posts were violated the state campaign law.
But some precedent can be found with Lombardo, who was ordered to pay $5,000 in September for unknowingly violating campaign law. During the case, which began in 2021, the Commission on Ethics determined Lombardo used his status as the Clark County sheriff to run for governor.
“Two posts were errantly tagged with the campaign handle, and internal measures have been implemented to ensure this does not happen again,” Elizabeth Ray, spokesperson for the Governor’s Office, told The Center Square. “The campaign and official accounts for Gov. Lombardo have been and continue to be operated independently.”
