Sanctions Against Kari Lake Could Cost Her Nearly $700K

Election-denying Republican Kari Lake could be on the hook for nearly $700,000 in legal fees following a failed challenge to her loss in the Arizona governor's race last month.

In a motion filed Monday, Lake's opponent, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, filed documents seeking nearly $37,000 in compensation to cover costs associated with her legal defense after a weeks-long saga over claims of illegally cast ballots and alleged disenfranchisement that a Maricopa County judge ruled were largely without merit.

Combined with similar motions from Maricopa County and the Arizona Secretary of State's Office—the other two defendants in the case—Lake and her attorneys could be forced to pay an estimated $695,975 in sanctions to dissuade what attorneys for Maricopa County dismissed as a frivolous and baseless challenge to the integrity of the recent election.

"Enough is really enough," Maricopa County Deputy Attorney Thomas Liddy wrote in a motion filed Monday on behalf of several county election officials Lake attempted to sue. "It is past time to end unfounded attacks on elections and unwarranted accusations against elections officials. This matter was brought without any legitimate justification, let alone a substantial one."

Newsweek reached out to Lake's team for comment. Her legal team responded to the proposed sanctions in their own filing later Monday, arguing that she had filed the suit "in good faith."

"[Lake] put forth evidence in good faith that showed substantial support for her claims—claims which also remain of great public concern," read the conclusion written by attorney Bryan Blehm.

If the courts accept the terms outlined by the defendants, the sanctions could be among the largest associated with a challenge to a single election since the 2020 election, when Republican President Donald Trump spearheaded a national effort to overturn the result of an election he lost in several close races across the country, including Arizona.

This month, a U.S. appeals court in Colorado upheld nearly $187,000 in monetary sanctions against the attorneys behind an "utterly baseless" lawsuit challenging Trump's loss to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. In November, another group of conservative lawyers was ordered to pay nearly $70,000 for mishandling a Trump lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and figures like former FBI Director James Comey dating to the 2016 election.

Prior to that, a group of Trump-aligned attorneys, including Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, was ordered to pay more than $175,000 in sanctions following a challenge to Michigan's results in the 2020 election in what U.S. District Judge Linda Parker called "a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process."

There are also hundreds of thousands of dollars in outstanding penalties associated with a number of other Arizona-related cases dating to 2020, according to a scorecard maintained by non-profit blog AZ Law.

Lake has already appealed the sanctions. However, she could have someone willing to pay for them: MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who recently announced on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon's podcast that he was financing Lake's legal team following her public appeals for funding this month.

Newsweek reached out to Lindell for comment.