Republican Official Hits Kari Lake With Massive Defamation Lawsuit

A Republican election official in Maricopa County, Arizona has had enough of Kari Lake's lies about him and his office, and he has now filed a defamation lawsuit against her to hold her accountable for her words. Since both sides involved are public officials, it will be an uphill battle, but the truth is on the side of Maricopa County, and there is no question that Lake's comments have led to increased hardships for those that she has targeted. Farron Cousins discusses the lawsuit.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

A Republican election official from Maricopa County, Arizona has hit Kari Lake and her allies and some groups aligned with her with a massive defamation lawsuit alleging that Kari Lake's lies about the 2022 gubernatorial election in Arizona, specifically in Maricopa County, have caused this election recorder irreparable harm. Now, this again, Republican election official in Arizona is Maricopa County, uh, recorder Steven Ricker. Now, Mr. Ricker has said in the lawsuit, actually, let me just read this from Washington Post, in the complaint, Ricker alleges that Lake, her campaign, and a nonprofit organization tied to her repeatedly and falsely accused him of causing Lake's 2022 defeat Lake. And the two organizations, the complaint alleges falsely claimed that Ricker sabotaged the election to prevent Republican candidates, including Lake from winning. Ricker complaint focuses on accusations made by Lake at campaign rallies in podcasts, and on social media that Ricker intentionally caused polling place printers to jam on election day.

The glitches cause temporary disruptions in tabulating the votes, but an independent review has found that, uh, the problems were not pervasive and did not prevent people from voting, uh, voting, excuse me. I don't know why that would prevent people from voting, but no, they weren't able, nobody was not able to vote, is what I was trying to say. But Lake has alleged, and they, she's named Mr. Ricker personally out there. She has put his name out there, whereas it was not out there before. Um, she has said that this guy somehow got the printers to jam, like, I don't know. He used this like techno wizardry out there to print ballots that were too big, so they couldn't go through the, the readers, not the printers by the way, like the printers were where the ballots came from. They go into the tabulators. But either way, um, he didn't do that.

There've actually been several independent reviews of what took place in Maricopa County as this, uh, uh, complaint alleges. Like they all found that, nope, that didn't happen. And Mr. Ricker, of course, a Republican himself would have no motive whatsoever to prevent Republicans from winning an election that's just downright crazy and stupid. But it's Carrie Lake we're talking about. So yeah, but it continues. Ricker also accused Lake of falsely claiming that he inserted 300,000 phony early voting ballots into the Maricopa County system. In December, a judge ruled that there was, that there was no convincing evidence that ballots were mishandled in a way that would've affected the outcome of the Arizona election. So in addition to making ballots that are just too darn big, like we don't, what do we do with these ballots? She also says, and he just put in an extra 300,000 for Democrats

That none of it makes any sense. And the, the courts have said, none of this makes any sense. And the courts have basically told her legal team, like, y'all are lying about this. And so finally, Mr. Ricker last week, at the end of last week, decided, screw this. I'm, I'm filing this lawsuit. And, and he's also said is from him, um, my name continues to be dragged through the mud in front of millions of her online fo viewers in various platforms, and I felt that I needed to take the only course left. Um, he said that, uh, he's tried pushing back against the false claims on social media and through memos, press releases and news conferences. He said he worked with members of Lake's team to answer questions they had during and after the 2022 election. But he says that, uh, the misinformation spread about him by Lake and her affiliates has harmed his relationships with friends, his family, and his former political supporters.

So this could impact his career, which of course is a criteria for defamation. He said he sees a direct link between rhetoric from Lincoln or allies and the threats against him. So also receiving threats, you know, about your physical safety is also, you know, a criteria determined in a defamation case. And because these two are both technically public officials, you know, the bar to prove defamation is even a little bit higher.