Kari Lake Says Case 'Moving Forward' As Her Team Downplays Lawyer Sanctions

Former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is claiming a victory in her continued attempts to overturn her midterm loss after her lawyers were fined for making false statements about November's election.

On Thursday, Lake's lawyers were sanctioned $2000 by Arizona's Supreme Court after they made "false factual statements" that more than 35,000 ballots had been improperly added to the total ballot count in the election which the Republican lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs by 17,000 votes.

In response, Lake and her team suggested that the biggest story from the ruling was that Lake's election challenge over signature verification in procedures on early ballots in Maricopa County can be examined.

"It is further ordered that the trial court shall forthwith conduct such proceedings as appropriate to resolve the unrelated question previously remanded," wrote Justice Robert Brutinel in the order.

In March, the Arizona Supreme Court rejected six of seven of Lake's claims against the election's results but allowed a trial court to hear arguments about her seventh previously dismissed claim regarding whether Maricopa County did not follow procedure in its verification of signatures used to check voters' identities before early ballots were counted.

The latest order from Judge Brutinel means that a lower court can resume litigating the matter.

In a tweet, while sharing a conservative news site's article about the ruling, Lake wrote: "I am so excited that our case is moving forward!

"I will not stop until we restore election integrity to the good people of Arizona."

The Kari Lake War Room Twitter account also shared the judge's ruling that the case challenging Maricopa County signature verification processes can take place.

"The media's narrative is about (minor) sanctions over a semantic dispute and not Kari's huge victory," Lake's team wrote.

"The Arizona Supreme Court has given us the go ahead to start our investigation of the signature verification process. We will expose Maricopa County's House of Cards."

Regarding Lake's claim that more than 35,000 ballots were added to Maricopa County's total at a third-party processing facility run by Runbeck Election Services, Brutinel said the allegations were unsupported by the case record and that Lake's lawyers should never have made the false statements.

"Not only is that allegation strongly disputed by the other parties, this Court concluded and expressly stated that the assertion was unsupported by the record, and nothing in Lake's Motion for Leave to file a motion for reconsideration provides reason to revisit that issue," the court order read.

"Although Lake may have permissibly argued that an inference could be made that some ballots were added, there is no evidence that 35,563 ballots were and, more to the point here, this was certainly disputed by the Respondents," the court order added. "The representation that this was an 'undisputed fact' is therefore unequivocally false."

The judge also imposed a 10-day deadline for the $2000 fine to be paid.

Lake, who was endorsed by Donald Trump, has frequently claimed that voting irregularities cost her the race for Arizona governor and is attempting to overturn the results or force a new election via the courts.

On February 16, the Arizona Court of Appeals rejected Lake's lawsuit as her claims that issues with printers and tabulation machines and long lines on Election Day in November 2022 resulted in "thousands" of Republican voters being unable to cast their ballots. as "quite simply, sheer speculation."

In December 2022, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson threw out the lawsuit because Lake failed to provide any "clear and convincing" evidence of irregularities or misconduct costing the Republican her midterm election.