by Caitlin Sievers, Arizona Mirror
Kari Lake, considered one of Arizona’s most fervent election deniers, appears to have accepted her loss in final week’s race for U.S. Senate to U.S. Congressman Ruben Gallego. On the similar time, she’s nonetheless coping with the fallout of her refusal to simply accept her loss within the 2022 election for Arizona governor.
Practically two full days after the Related Press projected that her Democratic opponent had gained Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat, Trump-endorsed Republican Lake posted a video on the social media website X, previously Twitter, signaling that her run for the Senate was at an finish.
“I can say for certain that truth will never stop mattering to me,” Lake instructed her followers. “You will never stop mattering to me. These memories that we’ve made together will never go away — they will grow sweeter over time, and I will never stop fighting for the state I love.”
Although Lake, a former Phoenix tv information anchor, mentioned within the video that she was leaving “this fight,” she tiptoed round straight admitting defeat. Marine veteran Gallego’s marketing campaign confirmed to the Arizona Mirror that Lake hasn’t but contacted him to concede.
On Nov. 11, the identical day that the Related Press referred to as the Senate race for Gallego, Lake’s husband filed a movement asking a Maricopa County Superior Courtroom choose to dismiss a defamation case that stemmed from Lake’s refusal to simply accept the outcomes of the race she misplaced two years prior.
In June 2023, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer filed a defamation swimsuit in opposition to Lake, her husband, Jeff Halperin, her gubernatorial marketing campaign and the Save Arizona Fund.
The Save Arizona Fund is a darkish cash nonprofit that Lake controls and that has raised an unknown amount of cash to fund her authorized efforts to overturn the 2022 election.
Within the months main as much as the swimsuit, Lake falsely accused Richer of deliberately sabotaging the 2022 election, and blamed her loss within the gubernatorial race to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs on unproven election fraud.
Lake has repeatedly claimed — with out proof — that Richer was answerable for 300,000 “illegal, invalid, phony or bogus” early ballots being counted in Maricopa County. She’s misplaced each trial and attraction in her lawsuit difficult the election outcomes over the previous two years.
In March, Lake defaulted within the case, legally conceding that her claims about Richer have been false, whilst she continued to say the other in public statements.
Since then, each side have struggled to compel the opposite to show over proof that could possibly be used to find out how a lot Lake owes Richer in damages, the one problem left for the court docket to resolve.
Richer is looking for damages to reimburse him and his spouse for the hundreds of {dollars} he mentioned they spent to put in new security measures of their house after he mentioned Lake’s false statements spurred threats of violence and harassment.
Moreover, Richer is asking to be awarded punitive damages, in addition to compensation for injury to his repute and psychological well being.
William Fischbach, an lawyer for Halperin, wrote within the Nov. 11 movement that the choose ought to “end this farcical defamation lawsuit.”
He wrote that, as a result of Richer didn’t adjust to an order from the court docket to reveal some form of quantification of the damages that he believes he’s owed, along with different causes, the case ought to be dismissed.
Fischbach wrote that Richer can’t straight attribute to Lake any hurt to his repute or psychological well being, since his standing with fellow Republicans had soured lengthy earlier than Lake misplaced in 2022.
“Right or wrong, fair or unfair, Richer’s decision to clash with Trump predictably ‘provoke[d] hostility’ from Trump supporters,” Fischbach wrote. “Unsurprisingly, this had a pernicious effect on Richer’s reputation and standing with Trump supporters.”
Fischbach identified that Richer had been the goal of hate and on-line disparagement previous to Lake’s accusations of election fraud, beginning after he defended the county’s election practices amidst widespread claims of fraud primarily based on the “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.
Whereas it’s true that Richer was harassed and threatened earlier than Lake started focusing on him particularly, since she misplaced the 2022 election, Lake has repeatedly talked about Richer in social media posts, on podcasts and tv exhibits the place she alleged that the governorship was stolen from her. Lake has greater than 2 million followers on X.
Each Fischbach and attorneys representing Richer declined to remark for this text.
Matthew Kelly, a Phoenix lawyer with Ballard Spahr, who continuously defends defamation lawsuits however was not concerned on this case, instructed the Arizona Mirror that it was at all times tough to inform how a choose will rule in such circumstances, however that it might seemingly hinge on Richer’s response to the movement, which has not but been filed.
“Dismissals on the basis of discovery violations are relatively rare, but they do happen,” Kelly mentioned.
(Editor’s be aware: Ballard Spahr represents the Arizona Mirror and its writer, States Newsroom, on First Modification points, and Kelly has labored on a few of these circumstances.)
Moreover, Fischbach claimed that the case ought to be dismissed as a result of Richer failed to tell the defendants concerning the county’s “data mining” operation “that monitors news stories and social media in real time to gauge the public’s sentiment towards Richer.”
For her half, Lake has additionally been sluggish to offer proof or refused to reveal it, most just lately saying that any emails about media protection of Lake’s false statements had been “purged” when her gubernatorial marketing campaign, Kari Lake for Arizona, was dissolved. Throughout an Oct. 21 listening to, Lake’s lawyer, Tyler Swensen, mentioned that the emails have been deleted earlier than the defamation swimsuit was filed, clearing Lake of any obligation to retain them as proof.
However whereas Swensen instructed the court docket that the emails have been seemingly misplaced when Kari Lake for Arizona was dissolved practically a yr earlier than the case was filed, that’s not true. The marketing campaign filed its final finance report in early 2024, and was spending cash via Dec. 31, 2023, greater than six months after Richer filed the swimsuit.
Fischbach’s third and last cause for dismissal was that Richer completely deleted his X account on Nov. 7, illegally destroying proof within the case.
Richer deactivated his account Nov. 7, two days after the Nov. 5 election, as the positioning was awash in misinformation and baseless accusations of election fraud in Maricopa County. Richer reactivated his account earlier this week, after Halperin filed the movement to dismiss the case.
Lake and the opposite defendants within the swimsuit had clashed with Richer over who was answerable for figuring out which tweets have been pertinent to the case, downloading them and offering them to the opposite facet.
Fischbach claimed that Lake’s choice to default and to not defend herself within the case was strategic.
“Defendants defaulted intentionally to smoke out Richer’s inability to prove any damages,” he wrote.
The movement to dismiss accommodates info and claims a few of that are tangentially associated to the defamation case, at finest. Within the movement, Fischbach casts doubt on Richer’s assertion in a 2021 letter to Republicans that he “didn’t want to be in the spotlight” with a footnote about Richer’s participation as a youth in musical productions akin to “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Cats.”
“I think it’s obvious that defense lawyers feel very strongly about their position and have put it forth in a vehement manner,” Kelly instructed the Mirror.
Fischbach additionally talked about his personal earlier service within the U.S. Military, monitoring parliamentary elections in Iraq in 2005, including that his job wasn’t to select winners however to “protect the process.”
Halperin requested the court docket not solely to dismiss the swimsuit, however to sanction Richer for failing to adjust to court docket orders.
“To protect democracy is to preserve the right of others to vote for candidates you don’t like,” Fischbach wrote. “Kari Lake is hated by some voters; loved by others. This lawsuit was met with accolades by those in the former group. But it has cast doubt on the fairness and legitimacy of the democratic process in the hearts and minds of the latter. For Richer, the harshest of sanctions is not merely justified. It is imperative.”
Lake has a Nov. 22 deadline to confide in the court docket when her marketing campaign emails have been “purged” and at whose route. A pretrial convention is ready for February 2025, forward of a jury trial to find out what damages Richer is owed.
