In Stephen Richer’s defamation lawsuit against her, Kari Lake has chosen not to represent herself. She has effectively acknowledged guilt by doing this, notwithstanding her denials to the contrary.
Lake attempted to portray the story as her refusal to take part in a political “witch hunt,” but she failed to reply to Richer’s claims by the Monday deadline.
As a result, she and the other defendants, which included her husband, her campaign, and a nonprofit organization that raised funds on her behalf, defaulted on the case and “conceded legal liability” for defaming Richer.
Richer released a statement saying, “When the chips were down, the Defendants decided to completely back down and concede that their lies were just that: lies. After months of doubling down and defending their lies across Arizona, in the media, and on social media.”
In response to a request for comment, Tim La Sota and Jennifer Wright, Lake’s attorneys, only directed the Arizona Mirror to a video that Lake had uploaded on the social networking platform X, which was formerly known as Twitter.
Lake did not answer any of the allegations made in the lawsuit or in Richer’s most recent filing, when he claimed that her attorneys were trying to delay the case by refusing to meet or talk about a schedule.
Rather, she took a savage stand against Richer and his “East Coast lawyers,” claiming that their sole goal was to obstruct her continuing bid for the U.S. Senate.
After putting up with months of baseless accusations from Lake and her followers that he was somehow implicated in election fraud in Maricopa County’s 2022 election, which saw Lake lose her race for Arizona governor to Democrat Katie Hobbs, Richer filed the defamation lawsuit last June.
That was months before Lake declared her intention to run for the US Senate in October.
According to Lake, Richer “intentionally printed 19-inch images on 20-inch ballots to sabotage the 2022 general election,” which led to the counting of 300,000 “illegal, invalid, phony or bogus” early ballots in Maricopa County. This is the precise focus of the lawsuit.
Lake asserted the same things in her legal challenge to the results of the 2022 election, which was unsuccessful on all fronts. The judges determined that her team failed to provide any proof that fraud, misconduct, or poor management cost her the election.
In a move filed on Tuesday, La Sota and Wright asked for a jury to “adjudicate factual disputes” and requested a default decision. However, Tom Ryan, a Phoenix personal injury attorney and regular critic of Lake, told the Mirror that Lake’s attorneys lost the opportunity to contest the case’s facts when they defaulted.
Regarding the request, Ryan remarked, “You don’t get to do that.” In a situation like this, he continued, a default is equivalent to “unconditional surrender.”
According to Ryan, the only issue Lake and her lawyers have at this point is how much money they will owe Richer in damages.
Jared Davidson of Protect Democracy, one of Richer’s attorneys, told the Mirror that Lake has had plenty of opportunity to substantiate her allegations against Richer, but she hasn’t done so for the clear and straightforward reason that they are untrue.
Davidson stated, “Let me be clear: The consequences of this filing could not be clearer, as opaque as the legal filing is today and as confusing or colorful as the video spin may be.” “Ms. Lake is acquiescing that she lacked proof to refute our allegations that she maligned our client.”
Lake, far from acknowledging her guilt, compared her circumstances to that of former President Donald Trump, who is currently embroiled in three criminal court cases, and blamed the “political elite” of using “lawfare” against her.
In the video, Lake went so far as to reiterate her earlier accusations, claiming that the lawsuit was an ongoing effort to rig the 2024 election.
“By participating in this lawsuit, it would only serve to legitimize this perversion of our legal system and allow bad actors to interfere in our upcoming election,” she stated. “So, I won’t be taking part. Instead, I will focus on the issues that matter to the people of Arizona.”
Lake’s comments in the video represent a significant departure from a social media post she made a few months prior in which she expressed excitement over the case’s evidence being found.
