SELF HARM: Kari Lake undermines her sanctions case with attack on judge
Former Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake lost her election lawsuit, and promptly turned to Twitter to lash out at the system that failed to grant her a win after the fact, as well as at the judge himself.
However, whether she received belated legal advice or had a moment of clarity all her own, she seems to have realized she made a mistake.
After learning of the verdict in her case, Lake tweeted out an announcement that she plans to appeal the ruling and claimed to have provided “evidence” that her election was “run outside the law.”
Meanwhile, Governor-Elect Katie Hobbs’ legal team entered a filing requesting that Judge Peter Thompson impose sanctions on Lake.
Lake made additional allegations, even suggesting that attorney Marc Elias — whose law firm (but not Elias himself) was part of Hobbs’ legal team — or others like him, had written Judge Thompson’s ruling for him.
However, one doesn’t have to be a “top left-leaning attorney” to recognize that lobbing (particularly baseless) accusations at a judge who is still deciding whether one’s case was an abuse of the system is bad form.
A tweet from the failed candidate linking to a right-wing opinion piece and quoting a portion that cited unnamed “legal experts” accusing Thompson of allowing an attorney connected to the defendant’s representation to write the opinion for him was deleted — but not before Twitter users (including Elias himself) had the opportunity to grab screenshots.
The following text — brackets included — was in Kari’s original tweet:
“Legal experts believe his decision [by Judge Thompson] was ghostwritten, they suspect top left-wing attorneys like Marc Elias emailed him what to say.”
The judge’s name is not mentioned in that line of the article Lake is quoting — she herself decided, for whatever reason, to put him on blast to her followers.
You can see the screenshot from Elias below.
Lake didn’t offer any explanation of her decision to delete the tweet, but it is no longer visible on her Twitter timeline.
Another tweet, claiming that she had successfully proven illegality in elections, is still up, though.
My Election Case provided the world with evidence that proves our elections are run outside of the law. This Judge did not rule in our favor. However, for the sake of restoring faith and honesty in our elections, I will appeal his ruling.
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) December 24, 2022
She also reposted the link to the opinion piece — this time as a retweet of the author, without any commentary of her own.
That piece, via Townhall, still makes the same allegations against Judge Thompson — not only of outsourcing his opinion, but of racial bias:“If inner city blacks [sic] had been disenfranchised, Thompson would not have added all those extra requirements, he would have made the law fit.”
Thompson’s ruling openly states that Lake brought forth witnesses to offer nothing but hearsay, speculation, and conjecture. See below the words straight from the ruling:
“Every one of Plaintiff’s witnesses – and for that matter, Defendants’ witnesses as well – was asked about any personal knowledge of both intentional misconduct and intentional misconduct directed to impact the 2022 General Election. Every single witness before the Court disclaimed any personal knowledge of such misconduct. The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence.”
After that ruling, can Lake possibly think that promoting stories accusing the judge of bias will help her case against being sanctioned?
Steph Bazzle is a news writer who covers politics and theocracy, always aiming for a world free from extremism and authoritarianism. Follow Steph on Twitter @imjustasteph. Sign up for all of her stories to be delivered to your inbox here: