Topline
Kari Lake, the former Republican candidate for the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race, has been sued for defamation by a state election official Thursday as the close Trump ally has continued to promote unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud being the reason behind her defeat last year.
Kari Lake speaks during a rally at the Hilton Palm Beach Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Key Facts
The lawsuit against Lake was filed by Maricopa County’s recorder Stephen Richer—who is also a Republican—and it accuses the GOP candidate and her campaign of making repeated false accusations that he “sabotaged the election” to prevent Lake from winning, the Washington Post reported.
Richter penned an op-ed in The Arizona Republic criticizing Lake for trying to “undermine confidence in our elections” adding that her “defamatory allegations have unleashed violent vitriol and other dire consequences.”
The GOP election official said Lake has continued to falsely accuse him of inserting “more than 300,000 invalid ballots” to alter the results of the election, despite a state judge dismissing her lawsuit claiming election malfeasance as she failed to produce any evidence.
The lawsuit says Lake also falsely accused Richer of trying to sabotage the election results by intentionally having 19-inch ballot images printed on 20-inch paper, which briefly disrupted the counting process, the Washington Post report added.
The election official accuses Lake of continuing to push these falsehoods in at various campaign events like the “Save Arizona” rally in January, a month after her election lawsuit was dismissed.
Crucial Quote
“Her words have provoked death threats…I’ve even lost friends and lifelong relationships because Lake has falsely painted me as a criminal. She has cast doubt on my loyalty to our country, our state and my office. She did this knowing that it would only throw gasoline on the fire of falsehoods about our elections,” Richer wrote in his op-ed.
Key Background
Lake a former news anchor and close ally of former President Donald Trump, built her gubernatorial campaign last year by reiterating Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election being stolen from him. Despite garnering Trump’s endorsement and a strong following from his supporters, Lake narrowly lost the governor’s race to her Democratic opponent Katie Hobbs by a 0.6 points margin. After her defeat, Lake pulled a page from the former president’s 2020 playbook as she refused to concede and made several unsubstantiated claims about the election being stolen. Lake filed a lawsuit attempting to overturn the results of the election, but the judge dismissed the case ruling that she failed to show evidence to back her claims.
Further Reading
Kari Lake accused of defamation in suit filed by Arizona election official (Washington Post)
Kari Lake continues to defame me. Here’s why I’m suing her for it (The Arizona Republic)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/06/23/kari-lake-sued-for-defamation-by-arizona-gop-election-official-who-she-accused-of-election-sabotage/