$500,000 In Legal Sanctions On Kari Lake And Her Attorneys In Arizona Proposed

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After Kari Lake, this year’s Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, lost in a recently filed lawsuit challenging her defeat by Democratic candidate and outgoing Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, Maricopa County leaders — who were also targeted in the case — and Hobbs are seeking the imposition of sanctions. That step would entail Lake and her two attorneys covering legal fees that defendants incurred.

In a sanctions filing made early Monday, Hobbs cited a total in estimated legal costs at over half a million dollars. The exact figure is $550,210, with that amount split between the Elias Law Group — headed by prominent lawyer Marc Elias, who often focuses on cases involving elections — and Perkins Coie. That total represents an estimate for work done throughout the entirety of this case in which Lake wanted to block Hobbs’s win. The filing from Hobbs notes that these figures are slated under the routine procedures at each participating firm for later examination to ensure accuracy, although a subset of those costs are already confirmed. Both Hobbs and county leadership, however, had a deadline of early Monday for making these initial sanctions filings.

The Maricopa County request only cites an amount covering the trial at around $25,000, although that doc notes the county team was prepared to file additional information outlining further requests for sanctions covering their costs if provided with that chance. To prevail on one remaining claim, Lake needed to prove intentional misconduct targeting the election affected how it was handled and that such misconduct — whatever form it supposedly took — actually affected the election results. She made no such showing. Scott Jarrett from the county government explained during trial how voters — who were allowed to cast a ballot at any active polling place open that day — were on occasion left with ballots not fully printed darkly enough for the scanners, but besides the option of heading somewhere else, voters were also able to leave their ballots for later tabulation. That was a key dispute.

A witness for Lake at trial discussed someone telling her ballots weren’t counted before delivery to Runbeck, a third-party company the county uses in processing votes — but they weren’t supposed to be counted. That same witness also claimed she was informed of Runbeck supposedly allowing staff to add family ballots to the count without submitting these votes through the county. There’s no supporting evidence for that notion.

In her filing, Hobbs formally joined in arguments made by county leadership in seeking penalties. “Indeed, the entire purpose of this litigation was to plant baseless seeds of doubt in the electorate’s mind about the integrity and security of the 2022 General Election in Maricopa County. And while it is one thing to do so on TV or social media sites, it is another thing entirely to attempt to use the imprimatur of the courts to try to achieve that goal. Plaintiff’s obvious attempt to do so here merits sanctions,” that doc — also filed Monday — insisted. A judge will decide on any level of financial penalty.

Image: Gage Skidmore/ Creative Commons