Nevada Treasurer Dan Schwartz says Attorney General Adam Laxalt should resign — either from his campaign for governor or his post as the state’s top law enforcement officer.

Schwartz, Laxalt’s primary election opponent, on Friday criticized the attorney general’s efforts to enlist state staffers in a politically charged press spat over a pardoned prisoner.

Those efforts — documented in an audio recording published last week by the Reno Gazette Journal — prompted Democrats to accuse Laxalt of mixing his partisan campaign priorities with his official duties.

Schwartz struck a similar note, telling the RGJ that he, as a fellow public official, would not have made the phone calls Laxalt can be heard making in the audio recording.

“There’s a real integrity question here, and it’s focused on (Laxalt’s) ability to separate his state office from his political ambitions,” Schwartz added. “I see this as a political issue where the attorney general can’t separate himself from his campaign.

“If you can’t do that, either resign as attorney general or drop out of the race.”

Questions about the politicization of Laxalt’s office made headlines in November, when the Nevada Democratic Party filed a public records request to determine whether politics played a role in Laxalt’s decision to oppose pardoning a man wrongfully convicted of murder.

The attorney general’s office told the RGJ that media inquiries involving the state Democratic party are directed to Laxalt’s campaign team, as opposed to taxpayer-funded staffers. That’s not unusual, given Nevada’s prohibitions against politicking on the public dime.

But in the recording obtained by the RGJ, Laxalt, in a phone conversation, called on an office staffer named Monica to help beat back a news story about the Democrats’ records request hours before the Las Vegas Review-Journal first reported on the matter. Monica Moazez is the attorney general's office spokeswoman.

Laxalt suggested she tell another staffer named Caroline to contact a reporter and “fight this story as much as possible.” Caroline Bateman, a deputy attorney general, used to work in the Clark County District Attorney's office like the Caroline mentioned by Laxalt in the recording.

Moazez did not immediately returned requests for comment.

Laxalt's campaign looked to brush off Schwartz's remarks in a statement issued Friday.

"It's late on Friday afternoon," said campaign spokesman Andy Matthews. "Shouldn't Dan be back at his San Francisco weekend home by now?

"This is a laughable political stunt from someone who has been unable to gain traction after campaigning for months."