Kari Lake is the former TV personality who ran for governor of Arizona on a full MAGA platform, embracing all of Donald Trump’s insanities including that his loss in the 2020 election was due to fraud and that he is the rightful president. Well, she lost her election too but in true MAGA style refused to concede and declared that her loss was also due to fraud and that she should be declared governor.
When the election was certified by Arizona election officials who declared that Democrat Katie Hobbs had won, Lake sued because that is what MAGA heads do. The judge was not impressed.
An Arizona judge on Saturday rejected Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s lawsuit attempting to overturn her defeat, concluding that there wasn’t clear or convincing evidence of misconduct, and affirming the victory of Democratic Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs.
…Thompson previously dismissed eight other counts alleged in Lake’s lawsuit prior to trial, ruling that they did not constitute proper grounds for an election contest under Arizona law, even if true. But he permitted Lake an attempt to prove at trial the two remaining counts involving printers and the ballot chain of custody in Maricopa County.
…According to Thompson’s ruling, Lake’s team had to show that someone intentionally caused the county’s ballot-on-demand printers to malfunction – and as a result of that, enough “identifiable” votes were lost to change the outcome of the 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,” Thompson wrote.
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates, a Republican who helps oversee elections, called the ruling “a win for Arizona voters and American democracy.”
“Arizona courts have made it clear that frivolous political theater meant to undermine elections will not be tolerated,” Gates said in a statement Saturday.
She then cranked up the crazy to 11 by tweeting that the judge’s opinion was ghostwritten by Democratic party operatives.
But the current secretary of state Katie Hobbs (who the one who defeated Lake in the governor’s race) sued her and her legal team for the costs of what they claimed was a frivolous lawsuit based on unfounded claims that wasted taxpayer money. Those costs could run to $600,000.
Hobbs has now joined a motion by Maricopa County officials asking for sanctions against Lake and her attorneys. The county’s deputy attorney, Thomas Liddy, wrote that Lake filed a “groundless” lawsuit for a “frivolous pursuit,” according to court documents.
“Enough really is enough,” Maricopa County’s filing read. “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.”
That suit went before the same judge Thompson whom Lake had accused of having his opinion written by someone on Hobbs’ team. Realizing that accusing a judge whose case you are about to hear of having his opinions ghostwritten was a major blunder, Lake then deleted her tweet.
The tweet, which was posted early Monday morning, suggested the founding partner of a law firm representing Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs (D) emailed Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson “what to say” as he authored the dismissal.
…“The Dismissal of Kari Lake’s Election Lawsuit Shows Voter Disenfranchisement No Longer Matters @Rach_IC:”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 now-deleted tweet reads.
Fortunately for her the judge decided not to impose sanctions on her that could have been hundreds of thousands of dollars and asked her to pay just the costs of expert fees which amount to about $33,000 and again affirmed that the election was won by Hobbs.
So will Lake finally concede? Don’t be silly. Like her leader Trump, she will never concede that she lost and is going to appeal the ruling.
Imagine a cult not with hundreds or thousands of members, but with tens of millions of members. And not made up of just the average Joe or Josephine, but of people with political, religious and economic power.
I don’t know any judges personally, but I suspect the absolute best way to really piss one off is to say that their opinions are not their own. Call ’em SOBs, tell them they got their law diplomas out of a Cracker Jack box, they will most likely just grin at you, but a judge’s entire raison d’etre is to deliver carefully considered opinions. Lake got way more consideration from that judge than she deserved.
I did wait…
So, my point is that the post title is misleading, sorta “no true Scotsman” thingy.
Basically, if they give up, they can’t have been a proper MAGAt in the first place.
(Or: Our system never fails; if it fails for you, you did it wrong)
It seems to me that Lake has strong financial incentive to never concede: She presumably has a Republican donor mailing list that has names+addresses of many many Republicans deeply convinced that electoral fraud by Democrats is common, and can be fought by donating money to Lake to file more lawsuits.
It’s only when the cost/benefit ratio tips against her that she might stop the lawsuits — and there’s no incentive for her to concede then, either. She can then make money shilling for other MAGA politicians, and/or going on lecture circuits to whine about how the whole system is rigged, rigged I tell you! against Trumpist Republicans. They got me, and they might get you next! Deep State Conspiracy!
The grift goes ever ever on…