Kari Lake concedes defamation lawsuit brought by fellow Republican

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Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer’s defamation suit against former gubernatorial and current Senate candidate Kari Lake is ending in a default judgment in Richer’s favor and an award of damages to be determined by the court after Lake bowed out of defending the suit Tuesday.    

Attorneys for Lake failed to file an answer to Richer’s lawsuit after a motion to dismiss the case failed in the superior and appellate courts. And following a motion for default judgment from Richer, her counsel asked the court to set a hearing to determine facts and damages awarded before entering default judgment in Richer’s favor.  

An attorney for Richer said Lake had effectively “surrendered.”  

“Let me be very clear, this filing may be full of legalese. It might be a bit confusing to read, it might be a bit opaque,” Jared Davidson, attorney for Richer, said. “But the takeaway and the legal effect could not be clearer. Ms. Lake is now refusing to defend the accusations that she made against Mr. Richer. She’s effectively admitting that she has no evidence to defend herself as it relates to the question of whether she defamed our client.” 

In a video statement, Lake claimed the defamation suit to be “lawfare” meant to interfere with her bid for the U.S. Senate.  

“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,” Lake said. “So, I won’t be taking part.”  

Richer filed a lawsuit against Lake and her campaign in June. He alleged two key claims made in the wake of her gubernatorial run and in her election contests that Richer intentionally printed 19-inch images on 20-inch ballots and inserted about 300,000 “bogus” ballots into the 2022 election count.  

Lake’s legal team initially moved to dismiss the case and claimed the lawsuit could not stand given free speech considerations and Arizona’s anti-strategic lawsuits against public participation, or anti-SLAPP statute, a state law barring lawsuits “substantially motivated by a desire to deter, retaliate against or prevent the lawful exercise of a constitutional right.”  

Judge Jay Adelman denied the motion to dismiss as he found Richer filed sufficient allegations of “actual malice.”  

Lake appealed the decision to both the Court of Appeals, which declined jurisdiction, and the Arizona Supreme Court, which declined review.  

After the motions to dismiss failed on appeal, Lake still owed an answer to Richer’s initial complaint. And after she failed to file one by deadline, Richer’s attorneys moved for default judgment earlier this month and later filed a motion claiming Lake’s legal counsel had “undertaken a campaign of obstruction to delay this case indefinitely” in trying to set a schedule for discovery.  

Today, Lake’s attorneys Jennifer Wright and Tim La Sota asked the court to set a hearing to assess damages owed to Richer.  

In the motion, they ask a jury and judge to go over the facts and root out any allegations they claim are not “well-pled,” and ask Richer to “be prepared to disclose competent evidence of causation” linking “his categories of defamation (“Ballot Size Sabotage” and “Bogus Ballot Injection”) and his claimed categories of damages.”  

And as for damages, Wright and La Sota ask Richer to provide total expenses incurred for Richer’s “psychiatric and psychological treatment” in relation to his mental health impact and a list of Republican donors and networks that “abandoned Richer and just how much it cost him.”  

Davidson said, “Our perspective, there’s no question whatsoever that Ms. Lake is going to have to pay for the harm that she’s caused our client and our client’s reputation. We’re confident about the next steps and the presentation that we’re going to make.”   

Lake said in the nearly three-minute video that she couldn’t be bribed or blackmailed, so the elite in Washington D.C. filed the lawsuit to bleed her dry.  

The litigious U.S. Senate candidate said the political elite was using “lawfare” to defeat her and Trump.  

“They know that they can’t beat either of us fair and square, so they hit us with lawsuits to keep us tied up and off the campaign trail,” said the losing gubernatorial candidate who filed lawsuits to overturn her loss to Hobbs.  

Lake said that because she told the truth about how elections are being run, “elected officials” hit her with a “frivolous lawsuit and they’re threatening to take everything I own.”  

Richer, in a written statement, said, “After months of doubling down and defending their lies across Arizona, in the media, and on social media, when push came to shove, the Defendants decided to completely back down and concede that their lies were just that: lies.”