Trump-supporting Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake has lost her bid to stop a defamation suit against her brought by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer — and that spells a huge problem for her, wrote KTAR talk radio host and legal analyst Barry Markson on social media Wednesday.
Lake has repeatedly claimed that Richer, a fellow Republican, was part of a conspiracy to rig the 2022 gubernatorial election against her, for which she has never provided definitive evidence. Richer has been a frequent target of hate and threats by Trump supporters ever since President Joe Biden defeated the former president in Arizona.
"Kari Lake is in big trouble," wrote Markson. "Now she faces discovery which includes testifying under oath herself plus depositions of her team and others. She will be forced to turn over her emails, texts and documents about her strategy, speeches, plans, etc, which may include indications she knew what she said about Richer were lies. She will be forced to turn over audio recordings, which we now know she keeps, of conversations with others about her conspiracy theory lies."
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"Richer's legal team is huge & the same attorneys who secured a $148 mil verdict against Rudy Giuliani," Markson noted. "They are good lawyers and know what they are doing. Statements made by Kari are provably false, and frankly obviously false, and she kept making them even after courts told her it was lies."
This comes after Lake failed to make any headway with her own lawsuits trying to nullify the results of the 2022 election, which courts in Arizona roundly rejected.
With incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent, not running for re-election, Lake will likely face Marine veteran and Phoenix-area congressman Ruben Gallego on the Democratic side.
