Kari Lake is in deep, deep trouble with judge's refusal to dismiss defamation lawsuit

We end the year 2023 much as we ended 2022, with yet another loss for Kari Lake.

But also, possibly, the first, long-overdue step on the road to accountability for the state’s biggest crybaby, a failed candidate who simply cannot accept the fact that she lost an election.

Last week, a judge ruled that Lake does not have a First Amendment right to call Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer a criminal.

She now has to prove her claims that he intentionally sabotaged the 2022 election. That is, if she wants to avoid being hit with a multimillion-dollar penalty for defamation.

Giuliani couldn't prove his election claims

I picture Lake, waking up in a cold sweat as she channels her inner Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani — once respected as “America’s mayor” until he became Donald Trump’s errand boy — was recently hit with a $148 million jury verdict after a judge found he defamed a pair of Georgia poll workers.

Following the 2020 election, Giuliani circulated a video that he claimed showed the two workers stuffing voting machines with “suitcases” of fake ballots and passing around “a USB thumb drive" of electronic data, “as if they were vials of heroin or cocaine.”

Turns out the “suitcases” were actually regulation ballot boxes and the “thumb drive” was a ginger mint.

And the poll workers? They were terrorized, driven out of their jobs and their homes by a Trump mob that seeks to make America great again, one death threat at a time.

Last week, Giuliani filed for bankruptcy — while continuing to claim that the two workers committed election fraud and that he can prove it.

Only, of course, he hasn’t.

Kari Lake has done similar lambasting

Sound familiar?

For more than a year, Lake has lambasted Arizona’s elections workers and Richer in particular, detailing the many fantastical ways in which this lifelong Republican set out to steal the election from the Republican nominee for governor.

The only thing she’s missing is any actual proof, which is why she lost her election challenge in court and every appeal thus far.

Still, Lake — now the Republicans’ likely pick for the Senate in 2024 — rages on, pitching conspiracy theories and telling outright lies about the supposedly insidious plot to steal her glorious election for governor.

This, in order to rake in donations, fire up her perpetually outraged supporters and, of course, pander to a certain ex-president who is looking for a new No. 2.

In June, Richer called her on it, suing Lake for defamation.

Judge won't dismiss defamation lawsuit

Lake has asked that the lawsuit be dismissed, claiming Richer has no right to try to hold her accountable, no matter how many death threats he and his family must endure.

But Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jay Adleman disagreed, rejecting her lawyers’ claim that her accusations of sabotage were “mere rhetorical hyperbole.”

“In point of fact, defendant Lake’s statements regarding improper 19-inch ballots and/or the existence of 300,000 fraudulent ballots may be discerned by a factfinder as either true or false when considered in the light of any available evidence,” he wrote, in declining Lake’s request to throw out the lawsuit. “These statements constitute assertions of fact that are actionable under prevailing Arizona law.”

Lake claims she not divisive: Moderates aren't so sure

The judge also rejected her claim that the lawsuit is just a sleazy, illegal attempt by a politician to silence his critics.

“The court is satisfied that the disputed statements — if indeed they are ‘provable’ as false or defamatory — would be undeserving of the protections associated with our First Amendment principles,” Adleman wrote.

In fact, he found that Richer may well have the goods to prove “actual malice,” which is another way of saying Kari Lake is in deep, deep trouble.

If Richer sabotaged the election, prove it

Lake has opened her big mouth to accuse Richer of committing crimes. Repeatedly. Now she’ll have to prove it.

Prove that he personally sabotaged the 2022 election by adding 300,000 phony ballots to the vote tally. Never mind that the judge in Lake’s election challenge rejected that claim a year ago.

Prove that he intentionally set printers to shrink Election Day ballots so they couldn’t be counted. Never mind that Richer has nothing to do with Election Day voting.

Or that the votes ultimately were tabulated. Or that a retired Supreme Court chief justice, hired to investigate the county’s Election Day failures, concluded the problem was primarily due to equipment failure, not an intentional act.

The judge’s ruling means that Richer will get his day in court. And that Lake will get hers as well — to back up her incendiary claims with actual proof.

Accountability. Yep, it's so unfair

Naturally, Lake sees a conspiracy afoot to silence her.

As if silencing her is even possible.

“This is about taking away our First Amendment rights and interfering in the U.S. Senate race,” she huffed last week, in response to the judge’s ruling.

“They’re suing me for defamation, for having the courage to point out all of the election, not just irregularities but election fraud,” she puffed. “Government officials are now suing me, trying to take everything I have away from me for having the courage to speak out. And that tells you right there they’re trying to hide something.”

Actually, it tells me that an elections official whose family has been terrorized is standing up to the state’s biggest camera-ready bully, and it’s about time somebody did.

Lake has become the darling of the MAGA movement by grinding the reputation of people like Richer into dust.

Now she’s being held accountable. Being told that she better be ready to back up her claims.

Oh, the utter unfairness of it all.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts or on Threads at @laurierobertsaz.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake is in deep, deep trouble as defamation lawsuit proceeds