Lawyers for failed Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on Thursday were fined $2,000 by the state Supreme Court for making “unequivocally false” allegations about November’s election.
Lake’s lawyers will have 10 days to comply, according to The Associated Press.
“Sometimes campaigns and their attendant hyperbole spill over into legal challenges. But once a contest enters the judicial arena, rules of attorney ethics apply,” Chief Justice Robert Brutinel said.
The ruling came in response to a request by Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) to sanction Lake and her lawyers for falsely saying that over 35,000 ballots were sent to a third-party processing facility to be included in the final tally for Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county.
Hobbs defeated Lake, who has yet to acknowledge her 2022 loss, by over 17,000 votes.
Brutinel did not grant Hobbs and Fontes’ request for Lake to pay their attorney fees. The judge added that Lake’s lawsuit challenging the verification of signatures in Maricopa County’s early voting is still moving forward.
“We respectfully disagree with the Court’s holding but look forward to presenting our case at trial on the claim of illegal signatures and any other claim the trial court may consider,” Kurt Olsen, a lawyer for Lake, told NBC News.
The state Supreme Court in March struck down the majority of Lake’s lawsuit challenging her election loss, but overturned a lower court’s decision...
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