Maricopa County and the the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office asked a judge on Monday for thousands of dollars in sanctions against Kari Lake and her lawyers for filing a lawsuit against the Democrat gubernatorial candidate.
“Courts are established by Arizona’s Constitution and statutes to resolve actual disputes between parties,” Maricopa County Deputy Attorney Thomas P. Liddy wrote in a 15-page memo.
“They do not exist so that candidates for political office can attempt to make political statements and fundraise. And they should not be used to harass political opponents and sow completely unfounded doubts about the integrity of elections. All of those things happened in this matter.”
JUST IN: Maricopa County, Katie Hobbs seek thousands of dollars in sanctions against Kari Lake after her election lawsuit was dismissed https://t.co/AzKmA3o7KS pic.twitter.com/p2jImBYvqn
— azfamily 3TV CBS 5 (@azfamily) December 26, 2022
NEW: Gov-elect Katie Hobbs & Maricopa County file motion to sanction Kari Lake. Hobbs also wants court to pay her about $37K in attorneys’ fees back. This comes after a judge threw out Lake’s election lawsuit, challenging her loss. pic.twitter.com/0HXepSpXiz
— Justin Lum | 林俊豪 (@jlumfox10) December 26, 2022
Over the weekend, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson ruled that there was no clear evidence of misconduct by the county that Lake had alleged had affected the result of the 2022 general election.
Lake said she will file an appeal to the decision.
AZ Family reported:
Lawyers for Lake focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of Arizona’s voters. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Lines backed up in some areas amid the confusion. Lake’s attorneys also claimed the chain of custody for ballots was broken at an off-site facility, where a contractor scans mail ballots to prepare them for processing.
After the ruling, Judge Thompson ordered that sanctions sanction documents were due Monday morning by 8 a.m. Maricopa County Superior Court records revealed a motion seeking sanctions was filed minutes before the deadline. One motion asks for approximately $37,000 in attorney fees for Hobbs and the county.
Hobbs’s legal team joined Maricopa County’s motion for sanctions, court records show.
“Enough really is enough. It is past time to end unfounded attacks on elections and unwarranted accusations against elections officials,” the memo states.
“This matter was brought without any legitimate justification, let alone a substantial one.”
Attorneys for Lake have until 5 p.m. on Monday to respond.
Law & Crime added:
If a judge sanctions Lake’s legal team, it wouldn’t be for the first time.
On Dec. 1, 2022, a federal judge slammed Lake’s lawyers for “recklessly” filing a similar lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona over the election results. U.S. District Judge John J. Tuchi, a Barack Obama appointee, found that the complaint had been filled with “false, misleading, and unsupported” claims. Her attorneys on that case included Andrew D. Parker, Jesse Hersch Kibort, and Joseph Alan Pull of the Minneapolis-based firm Parker Daniels Kibort LLC and Washington, D.C.-based lawyer Kurt B. Olsen.
Ex-Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz also was of counsel in that case, but he insisted that he held no view on the validity of his client’s voter fraud claims, advising solely on the underlying legal issues. That sanctions order, however, focused solely on the lawyers.
Maricopa County says that the client also deserves punishment.
Read the memo HERE.
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