Representative Jim Gibbons is running for Governor of Nevada. He’s a very impressive fellow.
Born in Sparks, Nevada, Gibbons interrupted his studies at the University of Nevada, Reno during the Vietnam War to serve in the United States Air Force (1967-1971). He also attended Southwestern Law School, in Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California for post-graduate studies. He is also a graduate of the US Air Force Air Command and Staff College and the Air War College. He joined the Nevada Air Guard in 1975 and served as its vice commander from 1990 to 1996, participating in the first Gulf War. During his military career, Gibbons earned nineteen service medals, including the Legion of Merit and Distinguished Flying Cross. In civilian life, he has worked as a lawyer in private practice, an airline pilot for both Western Airlines and Delta Air Lines, a hydrologist and a geologist.
Gibbons served in the Nevada State Assembly from 1989 to 1993, during which time he was called to active service in the Gulf War as an RF-4C Flight Leader. During the conflict, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his extraordinary achievement while participating in a mission in which he flew his unarmed aircraft on a vital reconnaissance mission to acquire politically sensitive imagery of enemy targets in Kuwait.
Including the Distinguished Flying Cross, Gibbons has received a total of 19 service medals throughout his military service, such as the Legion of Merit, Air Medal with Two Oak Leaf Clusters, Aerial Achievement Medal and Air Force Commendation Medal with One Oak Leaf Cluster.
He was elected to the House in 1996, and serves as vice chairman of the House Resources Committee, as well as on the Armed Services Committee, the Homeland Security Committee, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. His wife, Dawn Gibbons, was elected to the Nevada State Assembly in 1998.
And, until a few weeks ago he was cruising, ahead in the polls and getting ready to measure the drapes in the state house. Then things began to go south…fast.
First he had a little incident with a cocktail waitress.
Chrissy Mazzeo, a 32-year-old Las Vegas cocktail waitress, told police that Gibbons assaulted her and propositioned her in a parking garage after the two sat with others drinking in a Las Vegas restaurant.
Gibbons has said repeatedly that he did not assault Mazzeo while he helped her locate her truck in a parking garage after the group had left the restaurant.
Gibbons said he grabbed Mazzeo by her arm in an attempt to break her fall after she had tripped as they were walking.
Mazzeo told police that Gibbons grabbed her arms with both hands and pushed her against a wall, but she has refused to press charges.
Gibbons told the Gazette-Journal on Monday that he walked Mazzeo to her truck instead of calling a cab for her because he was unsure about how much she had to drink.
“I only saw her for a very short time and she had a glass or two of wine so I had no idea of what had happened before she came and sat down at our table,” Gibbons said.
Gibbons denied Monday that he said the woman was “tipsy.”
Yet, according to an interview with Las Vegas police the day after the incident, Gibbons said of Mazzeo: “She might have been tipsy. She didn’t walk in a straight line. That’s for sure.”
Gibbons said Monday he would have called a cab for Mazzeo if he thought she had too much to drink.
“It’s a challenge,” he said. “How do you go back and change that?”
She’s going public today, which should only make matters worse for Gibbons. He certainly comes off as a creeptacular liar. But he has bigger problems than assaulting women in parking garages. He and his wife have been lying for over ten years about whether or not they employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper.
Pastor Sandoval, who is Peruvian, says she entered the U.S. in 1984 by hiding in the trunk of a car as it crossed over from Tijuana. She got a job cleaning the sprawling house on the outskirts of Reno. When the Gibbons family bought the house in 1987, she stayed on.
In the beginning, she says no one asked about her legal status, but it became abundantly clear the Gibbons family knew she was not here legally since they often asked her to hide when certain people came to the house.
Sandoval said, “She told me somebody coming to the home, don’t answer the door, don’t say nothing because my husband is running. I think, at that time, for Assembly. One time she told me the newspaper or someone is coming, go downstairs and not come here until they left.”
Basements and parking garages seem to be bad news for Jim Gibbons. You really should read the whole article because it is a rare example of journalists nailing a politician without any ambiguity. Simply put, they located documents that prove beyond any reasonable doubt that they knew she was illegal, that they tried to help her get citizenship, and that they lied about how many hours she worked for them and the nature of the work she did.
It’s a spectacular implosion unlike anything I have seen in recent American politics. As a result, Dina Titus will almost certainly, and quite unexpectedly, become the Democratic Governor of Nevada.
