“Bad Strategy Legally and a Bad Strategy Politically”

Monday, April 1st, 2024

ARIZONA -–  Kari Lake is “not winning back the mainstream Republicans” as Arizonans “are just really tired” of her election denialism and lies after Lake attempted to evade discovery in the defamation case against her, a “bad strategy legally and a bad strategy politically.”

Last week, Arizona and national Republicans expressed frustration, yet again, about Kari Lake’s campaign, saying Kari Lake created her own “worst case scenario,” “she says one thing one day and then acts completely counter to that the next,” and has an “uphill climb” in her Senate bid.

WATCH:

Key Points:

• Democratic consultant Tony Cani: … I mean so much so that even though a court filing basically says, “I admit it, I was lying,” she still can’t handle people saying she was wrong. So she goes on the radio and repeats these lies the day that that filling happened and so she’s going to be knocked off message constantly. I think that it’s going to hurt her in Arizona. I think people are just really tired of this. 

• Arizona Mirror Editor Jim Small: …But certainly she’s shown, I think a reluctance to be able to kind of stick with that message discipline already, you know, I think usually it lasts about 36 or 48 hours and then we’re right back on the, you know, a Steve Bannon show or some other podcast or some other radio show where we’re talking about, you know, the ills and horrors of 2020 and 2022. 

• 12 News Square Off Host Brahm Resnik: …She’s not winning back the mainstream Republicans she says are coming back to her but now you’re seeing some of the more hardcore Lake supporters, the base, the real current Trump base saying, “You know, I’m not sure about this”. What should we make of that? 

• Jim Small: … A big story looking at, I think the New York Times, looking at the race and a lot of, you know, folks who would have been you know, I think firmly in Kari’s camp in 2022 who aren’t. And they’re lining up behind Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb. We’ll see whether that is able to translate into anything. You know, I think certainly these legal problems aren’t going to help her in that regard…

WATCH: 

Key Points:

• 12 News Square Off Host Brahm Resnik: … Is it a concession? That she defamed Stephen Richer?

• Phoenix attorney Tom Ryan: Absolutely, it’s a confession that she defamed Stephen Richer. She said the things that she said, she did it with intent, and she did it most importantly with malice. 

• Brahm Resnik: With malice. Explain why that’s important because we’ve heard the First Amendment defense, political speech, you can say all kinds of things, there’s a lot of latitude. How does the First Amendment play into this case, if at all?

• Tom Ryan: It does play into this case. The first amendment allows for free speech. What the first amendment does not allow for is defamation, slander, libel, those kinds of things. And in this particular case, one of the things Mr. Richer had to prove was not just intent to say something bad about him but that there was malice, and that it was fraudulent, that it was false. She did that in spades and sadly after she defaulted, she’s been on the air and in writing and on social media, again saying, “I meant to say the things I said they were true. I’m just trying to cut to the chase.”

• Brahm Resnik: You picked up right where I was going. She said quote “We’re cutting to the chase”, forcing Stephen Richer’s lawyer to make his arguments for damages against Lake for having defamed him, in other words now putting him on the defensive. Is that how the next phase of the trial, the case is going to work?

• Tom Ryan: Not to get too technical, but absolutely not.  it will not work that way. She will not get discovery. She will not get disclosure. All the kinds of tools lawyers have to go and figure out what’s going on in the other side’s case, she’s lost. So now the only thing that happens is Richer’s team gets to determine damages and that means they’re the ones with the discovery. So for example, they get to find who did you send these to? Who did your team send these to? They want to know how far you disseminated this. So they’re the ones that get discovery. She does not…

• Brahm Resnik: … What about punitive damages? 

• Tom Ryan: They’re on the table too because she’s admitted her malice and malice is and it’s clear and convincing is the standard. The standard has already been met because she said “Yeah I did it” and she’s still saying that she’s doing it. She’s got the IQ of an empty beer can if she’s going out there and continuing to say these things in the public after she’s admitted “I did all these things. I did them with intent. I did them with malice. “

• Brahm Resnik: All right. so you think this will go on for quite a few months?

• Tom Ryan: Quite a few months. It was a bad strategy legally and a bad strategy politically.