The Mark Lamb scandal isn’t just hypocrisy. It’s a Republican Party in moral free fall.

Few things are more predictable in politics than self-proclaimed moral crusaders getting caught in their own hypocrisy.

Mark Lamb, the self-described “family man” who built his public image as a gun-slinging Pinal County Sheriff, tough on Mexican cartels and wrapped in “family values,” now finds himself in a sex scandal and accusations involving racist remarks.

The 53-year-old Republican, who’s running for Congress in Arizona’s District 5 under the MAGA banner, is a prominent member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But instead of the family man image he carefully cultivated, an Arizona Republic investigation paints a very different picture: sexual affairs, trysts involving his wife, years of sexting with other women and threats to keep it all quiet.  

The Republic’s reporting included screenshots of explicit chats, sexual messages and nude photos allegedly sent from Lamb’s cellphone and social media accounts before and during his eight-year tenure as Pinal County Sheriff.

I really don’t care about Lamb’s romantic affairs — what happens in his marriage is between him and his wife. But the allegations go far beyond sexual conduct between consenting adults.

According to the Republic’s reporting, Lamb threatened a woman by saying he would send state troopers after her if she publicly shared nude photos he had sent her.

That isn’t just a marital matter or kinky behavior from a morally corrupt politician. It’s the hypocrisy and the abuse of power by a badge-carrying sheriff.

It’s blatant intimidation from a politician who wants to represent a district of nearly 800,000 Arizonans in the U.S. House of Representatives.

How’s Lamb responding?

Andrew Gould, an attorney for Lamb’s congressional campaign, sent a letter to The Republic dismissing the allegations as “baseless and harmful.”

“The campaign is aware that various false, misleading, and potentially defamatory allegations have circulated online for years,” Gould wrote. “They are repeated without verification and often to only cause great reputational and political harm.”

But that broad denial raises more questions than it answers anything.

What’s specifically false?

The trysts involving his wife, that he allegedly set up and then watched? The years of sexting with women? The alleged threats to use law enforcement against a woman to keep their exchanges from coming out?

If the reporting truly was “baseless,” you would expect Lamb to be loudly and publicly denying the allegations — on television, in interviews, anywhere he could.

You would expect him to say something like the photos are not his, the messages did not come from his phone or that he didn’t know about them.  

Instead, Lamb has largely disappeared from public view with just two months before the July 21 GOP primary. Lamb is facing construction firm owner Daniel Keenan.

Lamb has Donald Trump’s endorsement and thus remains the favorite to win both the primary and the general election in this heavily MAGA district that includes Queen Creek, Gilbert and Apache Junction.

Lamb isn’t just counting on Trump’s endorsement. He’s clearly borrowing from Trump’s political playbook to survive scandals: ignore and wait them out.

Trump is an expert on that. He weathered sex scandals and accusations of sexual assault — including a civil judgment against him for sexual abuse and defamation.

Lamb is betting MAGA voters will similarly turn a blind eye to his sexting, explicit exchanges and threats.

This isn’t just about Lamb’s hypocrisy. It’s the abuse of power of his public standing, his badge, to intimidate women and keep them quiet.

And yet, few Republicans are condemning Lamb’s behavior. Rep. Andy Biggs, who’s seeking the GOP nomination for governor and who Lamb aims to replace in CD5, told KTAR he’s “reserving judgment right now.”  

Rep. David Schweikert, who’s trailing against Biggs, called him out, saying his stance on Lamb “borders on immoral” and called on Lamb to explain himself. Really, that’s it?

This whole thing with Lamb shows yet again the decadence of a movement that embraces candidates who publicly preach righteousness while privately shredding the values they claim to hold.

It’s a moral decay of a political movement that invokes God and Christian values but are quick to excuse misconduct, sexual scandals and abuses of power of their own politicians like Lamb.