FACT CHECK: Kirk Adams' attack ad on Matt Salmon

MESA, AZ - A TV commercial hit the Valley's airwaves Monday in which Republican Kirk Adams accuses his primary opponent, Matt Salmon , of working to pass the Affordable Care Act .

The ad alleged Salmon's firm "was paid $190,000 to lobby for Obamacare."

"My opponent was a lobbyist on behalf of Obamacare," Adams told ABC15. "I fought Obamacare from the start."

The crux of Adams' argument centers around Salmon's employment with a lobbying firm that did work for two pharmaceutical companies.
 
Those companies belonged to an association that supported Obama's health care plan.

The ad cites seven different documents which indicate Salmon's lobbying involvement.

"This document doesn't say which position the firm took," said Salmon when presented with one of the seven documents. "It simply says the firm represented interests on health care issues in that bill."

Salmon tells ABC15 members of his firm, not him, lobbied to change a provision of the law regarding access to drugs by those with rare diseases.

That work, he insists, does not constitute support of the law.

"For Kirk to come out and say I took a position in favor of Obamacare is not only a lie, it's a terrible lie," said Salmon.

Salmon wrote a cease and desist letter in the hopes of persuading Adams to pull the ad.

Adams, however, stands by the spot.

"When we ask the voters who do you trust to repeal Obamacare, it is the person who made money and profited off it or the person who fought it from day one," said Adams.

But profiting off it and lobbying for it are two different things.

Without concrete proof to refute Salmon's claims his firm lobbied against the Affordable Care Act, ABC15's FACT CHECK determines Adams claims in the TV ad are inconclusive.