Kari Lake Asks Supporters to Pray for Her Attorneys as They Face Sanctions

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Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property insurance market, local and national politics. She has previously extensively covered U.S. and European politics. Giulia joined Newsweek in 2022 from CGTN Europe and had previously worked at the European Central Bank. She is a graduate in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University and holds a Bachelor's degree in Politics and International Relations from Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy. She speaks English, Italian, and a little French and Spanish. You can get in touch with Giulia by emailing: g.carbonaro@newsweek.com.

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Addressing a cheering crowd of supporters from the stage of Turning Point USA's America Fest on Saturday, Arizona's defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake urged people to pray for her legal team as they face sanctions over an election lawsuit.

After losing the state's gubernatorial race to Democrat Katie Hobbs in November, Lake legally challenged the results of the midterm election in Arizona, asking the court to either declare her the winner or rerun the election in Maricopa County, where voters reportedly faced technical difficulties on Election Day.

Lake's legal team was sanctioned by a court earlier this year after a federal judge rejected a request by the former television news anchor and Mark Fincher—the defeated Republican candidate for secretary of state—asking for Arizona to implement the mandatory hand counting of all ballots during the November election.

The judge ruled that lawyers representing the two Republican candidates "made false, misleading, and unsupported factual assertions" in their lawsuit. The attorneys claim their lawsuit was "supported by strong evidence."

Kari Lake
Above, Republican gubernatorial candidate for Arizona Kari Lake speaks during an election night watch party in Scottsdale, Arizona, on November 8, 2022. Lake asked her supporters at Turning Point USA's America Fest on December 17,... OLIVIER TOURON/AFP via Getty Images

Lake has compared the sanctions to an attempt to "silence" her attorneys.

"We're going to court tomorrow," Lake told the audience at the four-day-long conservative convention in Phoenix, adding that she will be facing attempts to have her lawsuit thrown out of court. "It's not going to happen, our case is too strong."

"Can you pray for our legal team?" she asked supporters. "These men and women are working so hard—and the powers that be are trying to silence them, they're sanctioning them, I don't know if you know what that means.

"They're telling these attorneys, 'If you dare try to fight these stolen, corrupted elections we're going to take away your license to practice law, we're going to take away your ability to feed your family,'" Lake added, saying that some attorneys have already walked away from the case.

The defeated Republican candidate—who lost to Hobbs by more than 17,000 votes—said that sometimes she felt like "just lying down" and quit fighting to overturn Arizona's gubernatorial election results. But among the cries of encouragement of those present at the event, she pledged to "fight corruption" in the American electoral system, calling her election lawsuit "the strongest election lawsuit that the country has ever put forth."

She added that she's willing to bring her case to the Supreme Court.

"The cowardly thing to do right now is to give up. Just give up. That's a cowardly thing to do. The hardest fights are the ones worth fighting. And this one is worth fighting. I'm in the fight. I'm in it," she said.

Lake has not yet conceded defeat to Hobbs and has repeated her claims on Saturday that she won the November midterms in Arizona.

Newsweek reached out to Lake for comment.

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About the writer

Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property insurance market, local and national politics. She has previously extensively covered U.S. and European politics. Giulia joined Newsweek in 2022 from CGTN Europe and had previously worked at the European Central Bank. She is a graduate in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University and holds a Bachelor's degree in Politics and International Relations from Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy. She speaks English, Italian, and a little French and Spanish. You can get in touch with Giulia by emailing: g.carbonaro@newsweek.com.

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Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property ... Read more