Kari Lake’s lawyer must pay $2K in sanctions for 2022 election statements

Former Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s legal team must pay $2,000 in sanctions after she made unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud in Maricopa County in the 2022 election, according to a new filing.

A Thursday order, filed from the Supreme Court of Arizona and shared online by Democracy Docket, granted a motion from Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) for sanctions, and directed counsel for Lake to pay $2,000 to the state court’s clerk.

The filing argues that Lake has “repeatedly asserted that it is an ‘undisputed’ fact that 35,563 ballots were added or injected” at a third-party vendor.

“Not only is that allegation strongly disputed by the other parties, this Court concluded and expressly stated that the assertion was unsupported by the record, and nothing in Lake’s Motion for Leave to file a motion for reconsideration provides reason to revisit that issue,” the order reads.

“Although Lake may have permissibly argued that an inference could be made that some ballots were added, there is no evidence that 35,563 ballots were and, more to the point here, this was certainly disputed by the Respondents. The representation that this was an ‘undisputed fact’ is therefore unequivocally false.”

Lake ran for governor in the midterm elections and lost to Hobbs after a contentious run-up. The former GOP candidate touted former President Trump’s debunked claims of widespread election fraud during the 2020 presidential cycle, and she and her supporters also cried election fraud after her 2022 loss in the governor’s race. She mounted legal challenges over her defeat, alleging voter fraud.

Lake said last month that prospective 2024 GOP candidates for president should believe “absolutely” that the 2022 governor’s election was stolen, and that it’s “a big red flag” if they don’t.