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On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court denied Kari Lake’s request to toss a defamation suit brought by Maricopa County Recorder (and fellow Republican) Stephen Richer, who’s pursuing damages over accusations of fraud related to Lake’s failed 2022 gubernatorial bid.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has now delayed the trial over Donald Trump’s 2021 coup attempt until the second Wednesday after the heat death of the universe (or perhaps the third Wednesday, assuming Harlan Crow bumps Clarence up to first class), it is refreshing to know there are still some consequences for serially lying about a free and fair election.
Rudy Giuliani, who’s one tainted bowl of borscht away from tanking the global scotch market, found that out earlier this year, after he was ordered to pay $148 million for defaming two Georgia poll workers, in part by claiming they were passing suspicious USB drives around during the ballot-counting process “like vials of heroin or cocaine.”
Now it’s ex-teleprompter reader, Arizona not-Gov., and GOP Senate candidate Lake’s turn to face the consequences. And it looks like she could be in serious trouble. For realz this time.
In an opinion piece for The Arizona Republic, columnist E.J. Montini recounts how Lake got herself into this mess—and notes how difficult it may be to get herself out.
In his lawsuit, Richer’s attorneys outline instances in which they say Lake not only spouted false allegations about election rigging against Richer (and Maricopa County supervisors) but continued to spread them even after courts “found ‘nothing’ to substantiate” Lake’s claims of intentional misconduct and said her accusations were “quite simply, sheer speculation.”
The lawsuit contains many instances in which Lake repeats the accusations, stating them as fact, as when she’s quoted saying, “Richer and (Maricopa County Supervisor Bill) Gates … printed a 19-inch image, the wrong image on the ballot, so that the tabulators would jam all day long. That’s exactly what happened. They did not want us to notice this. They didn’t want us to notice it.”
The lawsuit also notes how Lake claimed that Richer inserted 300,000 invalid ballots into the county’s vote to keep her from winning the election.
In his own opinion essay for The Arizona Republic, Richer stressed that both of those specific allegations were “completely false.”
“Not only would I obviously never do the things that she accuses me of, but also as a matter of Arizona law and election administration processes, I don’t even have responsibility for—or jurisdiction over—the printing of ballots on Election Day,” Richer wrote. “Lake has continued to repeat these falsehoods, despite multiple court rulings that found her attacks to be unfounded.”
Richer also noted that he’s received death threats from Lake’s followers, which forced him to strengthen his security measures while “still watching over my shoulder.”
Of course, this hardly bodes well for Lake’s U.S. Senate bid. When quasi-Democrat and life-sized absinthe fairy Kyrsten Sinema announced Tuesday that she was bowing out of the race to spend more time with her private equity cash, the Senate race suddenly became a two-person contest between Lake and Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego—who, significantly, is not being sued by a member of his own party for defamation.
Unfortunately for Lake, she’s in this mess in part because of the specificity of her allegations. She didn’t just continually bleat that her election had been stolen; she accused Richer of engaging in specific, deliberate—and easily disproved—acts of subterfuge.
Her claims that Richer intentionally printed the wrong image on ballots to sabotage the election—and that 300,000 illegal ballots were included in the results—may ultimately prove devastating, both to her pocketbook and her political prospects.
Law & Crime:
Finding that Lake’s remarks were not merely “imaginative expression or rhetorical hyperbole,” the judge noted that specifics surrounding ballot image size and the number of allegedly illegal ballots are matters that can be proven true or false. [Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jay] Adleman then refused to pause discovery, leading to Lake’s appeal — and eventual denial.
For his part, Richer is confident he can prove that Lake’s statements were deliberate lies and that he was personally harmed:
For the nontweeters:
Words matter.
Anyone who followed any of the court cases, anyone who paid any attention to the news, anyone who knew even a smidge about how elections work, should have known these HIGHLY SPECIFIC, easily falsifiable, claims were, in fact, false.
And those false claims — broadcast to millions of people, often while seeking donations — had, no surprise, a very material impact on me and mine.
So whither Lake? Will she share the fate of her moral lodestar and nonconquering hero, Donald Trump, who’s currently on the hook for over $83 million after being found liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll? And is there any way she can keep voters from running away screaming as this lawsuit continues to hang over her head?
For Richer to settle, he’ll need an apology and “a number”—meaning wads of cash that Lake probably doesn’t have at her disposal.
Stay tuned.
Campaign Action
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link.
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