A Republican candidate for Congress in New York said he was “being facetious” when, in the same interview, he said the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, should be executed for authorising the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s Florida home.

The candidate, Carl Paladino, recently caused controversy when he praised Adolf Hitler, as “the kind of leader we need today”.

Paladino made his remark about the attorney general in an interview with the far-right site Breitbart. Paladino said: “So we have a couple of unelected people who are running our government, in an administration of people like Garland, who should be not only impeached, he probably should be executed.

“The guy is just lost. He’s a lost soul. He’s trying to get an image, and his image, his methodology is just terrible. To raid the home of a former president is just – people are scratching their heads and they’re saying, ‘What is wrong with this guy?’”

Asked to explain his “executed” remark, Paladino said: “I’m just being facetious. The man should be removed from office.”

The FBI and Department of Justice have faced violent threats since agents searched Mar-a-Lago for classified White House records, under the Espionage Act.

In Ohio, a man who said on social media federal agents should be killed was shot dead after trying to get inside an FBI office with a semiautomatic rifle.

Paladino, a real-estate developer, has courted controversy before.

As the Republican nominee for governor of New York in 2010, he was criticised for forwarding emails containing racist jokes and pornography.

He also said children were being “brainwashed” to make them think being gay was equivalent to being heterosexual.

In 2016, he told a newspaper he hoped Barack Obama would die from mad cow disease and said Michelle Obama should “return to being a male” and be sent to live with a gorilla in a cave.

The following year, Paladino was removed from Buffalo’s school board. He contended the Obama comments were the reason for his removal.

This year, Paladino shared a Facebook post suggesting a racist mass shooting in Buffalo was part of a conspiracy to take away guns. The same month, he apologised for saying Hitler was “the kind of leader we need today”, supposedly because of his ability to rally crowds.

In a close primary fight with Nick Langworthy, a state Republican politician, Paladino has been endorsed by Elise Stefanik, the No 3 Republican in the US House and a prominent Trump supporter.

When Paladino praised Hitler, Stefanik said she “condemn[ed] any statement, but don’t take it out of context”.

The justice department did not immediately comment on Paladino’s remarks about Garland.