Former Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s attempt to overturn last year’s election results has gotten expensive – and not just for her. Though it was unclear how much Lake, who has refused to accept the outcome of last November’s election, has paid in legal fees, this month those same lawyers are now facing fines.
Her legal team, including lawyer Alan Dershowitz, is facing $122,200 in sanctions after a federal court in Arizona found that the failed candidate’s lawsuit contesting voting methods was “frivolous.”
The judgment, which was released last Friday, will be paid by Lake’s three lawyers including Andrew Painter, Kurt Olson, and Dershowitz. However, the latter was found to have involvement in the case and was thus ordered to pay just 10 percent of the fine. The lawyers are being held accountable for filing a lawsuit in bad faith.
This is also the second such time the attorneys for Lake have faced sanctions.
Spreading Misinformation?
In May, Lake’s legal team was also levied a $2,000 sanction judgment for its role in spreading misinformation about election integrity.
In other words, her legal team once again has to pay up because Lake couldn’t shut up – and accept her loss last November.
“Failing to impose meaningful sanctions here might very well encourage others to follow suit by lending their credibility to documents filed in court without facing any real consequence if their certifications prove hollow or incomplete,” Judge John Tuchi said in his ruling, TheHill.com reported. “The need for general deterrence is therefore significant.”
Not the Duly Elected Governor of Arizona
Kari Lake, a former television news anchor who lost the gubernatorial election to Governor Katie Hobbs, had brought the suit against the State of Arizona in April of last year and demanded that officials use alternative methods to collect and count ballots, claiming that the electronic voting machines aren’t reliable. That lawsuit was subsequently thrown out, but Lake proceeded to file another suit alleging widespread fraud.
That case was also dismissed, but Lake has doubled down – and has maintained a baseless claim that the race was stolen.
In January, Lake declared herself “the duly elected governor of Arizona,” for which she has received much mockery in the local press. However, she has since indicated that she could seek election to the United States Senate.
Lake the Critic
This week, Kari Lake also praised the film “Sound of Freedom,” after she watched the movie at a screening hosted by former President Donald Trump at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The film, starring Jim Caviezel and based on the life of former Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard, has been widely praised by conservative figures but has also received a host of negative reviews from mainstream critics. According to Newsweek, the film has been accused of appealing to supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory that posits that Trump would expose a secret cabal of high-profile satanic child abusers as president.
Caviezel and Ballard were both present at the Bedminster screening.
Author Experience and Expertise
A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
