It’s been a busy month for Clark County Sheriff and Nevada Governor candidate Joe Lombardo (R). In between flip-flopping on his thoughts about the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid, he was firing off text messages about taking down long-time city newspaper Las Vegas Sun.

FACTZ broke the story via social media prior to site’s launch and shared the text messages with the Sun publisher and CEO Brian Greenspun.

The text message exchange arose when FACTZ chairman Stephen J. Cloobeck reached out to Lombardo on July 29 to tell him about the new platform.

Lombardo messaged back, “Well that would be fantastic if we can get there. Maybe start by putting Brian Greenspun out of business. I would like to talk to you about it?”

Here are the ingredients you need to concoct this recipe for disaster:

1 nonpartisan sheriff, who’s now running for office as a MAGA Republican.

1 family newspaper, left-leaning.

Add in multiple comments by sheriff criticizing the Sun’s editorial board stance in opinion pieces, which called him “cowardly” for refusing to answer reporters’ questions

(He was also criticized for campaigning for governor as a more “Trumpian” candidate than he previously appeared to be.)

For flavor, season with comments from Lombardo’s campaign spokesperson Elizabeth Ray, who called Greenspun an “angry left-wing political activist with a checkbook”

Now aggressively shake, stir, broil and poach until all the facts in this matter are a burnt mess

In the Sun’s article detailing the matter, Greenspun was quoted as saying: “As far as putting me out of business, Joe is going to have to stand in line. This newspaper has fought back attempts by the mob, by Sen. Joe McCarthy, Sen. Pat McCarran, the Howard Hughes people and many in between, and now the entire Sheldon Adelson family, to try to put the Las Vegas Sun out of business, all because they don’t like what we write and how we write it.”

This is not the latest move in Lombardo becoming a conservative standard-bearer.

He told the Nevada Current that he felt the FBI shouldn’t have searched Mar-a-Lago, former president Donald Trump’s Florida home. 

“Let’s talk about how the FBI had no business searching Mar-a-Lago. They shouldn’t have been there,” Lombardo told the Current in response to a question about whether he’d like to see Republicans stop bashing the FBI and the Department of Justice for serving the search warrant at Trump’s Florida club and home on August 8. “But I’ll always support law enforcement.” 

Days earlier, Lombardo had a different take, saying he didn’t know enough about the search to comment.

“I don’t know the details associated with that. I work in the law enforcement space,” Lombardo said in an interview with Telemundo recorded August 9, according to Lombardo’s social media. “I deal with evidence and facts and I would be giving you a non-objective opinion if I was to give you an answer.” 

Huh? Forget that home-cooked dinner, let’s make a run for the border. Oh, wait …