Kari Lake Takes Fresh Legal Action Against Maricopa County Official

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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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Defeated gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has filed a motion to dismiss a Maricopa County official's defamation lawsuit against her, stating that her challenge to the November midterm results in Arizona was "a matter of significant public concern."

Lake targeted Maricopa County Superior Recorder Stephen Richer as one of the people she claimed were responsible for allegedly sabotaging the midterms race. She repeatedly called him a "crook" and accused him of adding 300,000 phony ballots to the final count, among other crimes—claims dismissed by a county judge earlier this summer.

Richer, a Republican, filed a defamation lawsuit against Lake in June, saying her false accusations against him have led to threats of violence and even death. But Lake's lawyers have now come back to Richer saying he's trying to silence her.

Kari Lake
Former candidate for Governor of Arizona Kari Lake listens as Donald Trump speaks at the Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference at the Washington Hilton on June 24, 2023. in Washington, D.C. Lake has... Drew Angerer/Getty Images

"In 2022, the legislature strengthened laws protecting the rights of citizens to speak freely on matters of public concern," Lake's attorney Jen Wright said in a statement on Monday. "Richer's lawsuit is precisely the kind of abuse of the legal system the law was designed to stop."

She added: "Stephen Richer is an elected official. His unlawful attempt to abuse our legal system in order to insulate himself from criticism of his awful job performance establishes a dangerous precedent in our nation's history."

"There is no hurt feelings clause in the United States Constitution," Lake wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday, commenting on the motion to dismiss. "I have a right to free speech. And I have EVERY right to remind Stephen Richer that he has failed the people of Maricopa County."

She added: "We can't count on him to count our votes."

Lake's motion was joined by the First Amendment Clinic of Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, which argued that Richer's lawsuit would stifle free speech.

Newsweek contacted Richer by email and Lake's team via the form on her website for comment on Wednesday.

Lake, a former television host turned Republican firebrand with the backing of Donald Trump, lost Arizona's latest gubernatorial election to Democrat Katie Hobbs by a margin of 17,000 votes in November 2022.

She refused to concede, and instead legally challenged the results of the election, asking for the race to be re-run or for her to be declared winner. Lake claimed that irregularities in Maricopa County—home to 60 percent of voters—prevented Republican voters from casting their ballot in support of her.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter A. Thompson threw her case out of court, which was later revived by the Arizona Supreme Court on Lake's claim that officials in the county had failed to verify signatures on mail ballots as required by law.

While Thompson dismissed Lake's last-standing legal claim in May, concluding there was no evidence that Maricopa County officials didn't verify signatures on mail ballots, Richer said that the damage to his reputation and his person has been significant.

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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