For Immediate Release
Friday, January 5th, 2024
Contact: Olivia Taylor-Puckett, otpuckett@azdem.org

REMINDER: Kari Lake defends Jan. 6 Capitol rioters on the Senate campaign trail [Arizona Republic] 

ARIZONA -– Three years after the January 6th insurrection, Kari Lake continues to “[defend] Jan. 6 Capitol rioters on the Senate campaign trail” and push dangerous conspiracy theories around both the 2020 election and the insurrection.
Since 2021, Kari Lake has been a “serial promoter of election lies,” and was described as able to potentially “inspire disgruntled citizens to violent action like the January 6 insurrection.” In 2023 – mere months before announcing her Senate campaign – Lake flirted with political violence, saying that if the U.S. Department of Justice wants to “get to President Trump [… they’re] going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me, and I’m going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA,” a statement that was widely denounced as creating a “dangerous atmosphere” in which violence becomes more accepted.
Read more of Lake’s serial promotion of election lies and association with insurrectionists below:

• Lake paid and continues to work with Caroline Wren, who raised $3 million for the January 6th rally and insurrection.

• June 11th, 2022: Held a fundraiser with Brandon Straka, who plead guilty to insurrection related charges.

• August 2nd, 2023: Appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, pushing new conspiracy theories about the January 6th insurrection, “All that January 6 was, was a staged riot […] the FBI who planted a bunch of you know, rabble rousers in the crowd to cause trouble […]  And I think [Mike Pence] can sort it out real quick, who the trouble was, who the good guys were, and who those handful of bad guys were that were planted in that fed-surrection.”

• August 2nd, 2023: Called the insurrection a “phony riot” and insisted that “President Trump did nothing wrong” on January 6th.

• August 15th, 2023: Said that the treatment of insurrectionists is “political persecution of people who support America. This is a political persecution of people who are pro-America,” and that insurrectionists were “rotting behind bars when they’re not going after the true instigators in there, which we know were now planted in that crowd.”

• August 19th, 2023: Said, “January 6th patriots, who didn’t do anything wrong except protest a rigged, rotten election. […] they lied about January 6th, which was really a staged riot to cover the fact that they certified a fraudulent election in 2020. Can we all agree tonight that Joe Biden did not get 81 million votes?”

• October 22nd, 2023: Said, “What’s happened to our January 6, protesters and just marchers, people who were there peacefully, what’s happening to them. And the weaponization of our government against them is outrageous, and something’s got to be done.”

• November 12th, 2023: Said she would “absolutely” work as a Senator to free “the people who are held politically, political prisoners.” In December 2023, Lake said that the prosecution of insurrectionists is “one of the great injustices in American history.”

• December 8th, 2023: Congratulated January 6th insurrectionist Owen Shroyer on his release from prison– a sentence he received for attending the violent January 6th insurrection at the Capitol after spending weeks  spreading election disinformation and “thinly veiled calls to violence” on his Infowars show.

• December 12th, 2023: Held an event with Alfie Oakes, who funded a bus that took approximately 100 people to the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Oakes said of January 6th, “[it] was amazing […] I have never been surrounded by so many great Americans.” The grocery store has been described as a “a shrine to Trump and Trumpism,” hosting conspiracy theorists like Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Charlie Kirk.

• December 13th, 2023: Appeared at an event in Dallas, Texas alongside Jenna Ryan, the “Insurrection Barbie” who was given prison time for her participation in the January 6th insurrection. Ryan praised Lake, saying, “I esp loved what she says about J6. ‘I think they should all be pardoned and more.’”

• December 17th, 2023: Attended Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA AmericaFest where she called for “lock[ing] up behind bars” the “real culprits” behind January 6th– allusions to Lake’s beliefs that it was a “fed-surrection” caused by the FBI “[planting] a bunch of, you know, rabble rousers” or that Nancy Pelosi may have been behind January 6th.

Lake’s campaign continues to struggle to appeal to voters in Arizona because of her dangerous conspiracy theories and her ongoing support and association with extremists, insurrectionists, and conspiracy theorists.

###