Kari Lake knew exactly who stole the election from her. Two months after the 2022 gubernatorial election was called for her Democratic rival, Katie Hobbs, the self-proclaimed rightful governor of Arizona took to the stage for a rally at the Orange Tree Golf Club in Scottsdale where a photo was projected behind her showing two election officials: Stephen Richer and Bill Gates. “These guys,” she said, pointing to the screen.
The crowd cheered, “Lock them up! Lock them up!”
Lake went on to allege repeatedly that Richer and Gates, both lifelong Republicans, sabotaged her candidacy by injecting 300,000 bogus early votes into Maricopa County where they administered the election and misprinting Election Day ballots. “The incredible lengths that these two bozos went to trample and steal our vote,” said Lake. “Well these guys are really, really terrible at running elections, but I found out they’re really good at lying.”
Just over a year later though, Lake declined to defend those statements in a defamation lawsuit brought by Richer, admitting that none of them were true, or as her attorney recently told the judge in the case, “We did admit everything, as far as the facts.” As for herself, Lake claimed she defaulted for the greater good. “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 said in a video posted online. “So I won’t be taking part.”
“Stop,” said Richer with a resigned laugh prior to her default. “Just, just stop.”
Though Lake effectively conceded, the case is not over. A jury will later determine how much she owes Richer in terms of damages — he is seeking millions — as well as the removal of Lake’s defamatory social-media posts. If other recent high-profile defamation cases are any indication — such as the one against Rudy Giuliani, who was ordered to pay two Georgia election workers $148 million — the price will not be cheap. With $2.5 million in her campaign’s bank account, a hefty judgment could harm her candidacy for a highly competitive seat that could determine who controls the Senate. But Richer has already won something that’s hard to put a price on: forcing one of the last leading election deniers in the country to go under oath, only to surrender.