Kari Lake agreed earlier this month to settle the defamation lawsuit against her filed by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, citing the enormous cost it would take to go through a full trial. Her attorneys sent a letter on Monday to Richer’s attorneys regarding Richer’s proposed meet and confer terms, rejecting all three proposals from him.
Lake is running for the U.S. Senate and still fighting two election lawsuits, one over her loss in the gubernatorial race and another challenging using voting machine tabulators in elections. Richer filed a defamation lawsuit against her for stating that he intentionally sabotaged the 2022 election. Approximately 300,000 ballots in the 2022 election lacked a chain of custody, a class 2 misdemeanor, but the county has fought litigation efforts to allow Lake to inspect the ballot affidavit envelopes and other requests from her and voter integrity groups related to the election anomalies.
Signed by attorneys Tim LaSota and Jennifer Wright, the letter said that “this lawsuit was never about Richer’s ‘reputation or good name.’ Rather, it was filed to further two improper purposes.” One was to use “vexatious litigation” to “drain” Lake of resources; another was to “interfere with her campaign by keeping her off the campaign trail and creating a barrage of negative media hit pieces.”
Additionally, the letter accused Richer (pictured above) of filing the lawsuit to “create a publicity and fundraising platform for Richer for his 2024 reelection campaign as Maricopa County Recorder.”
The letter laid out how Richer brags about how well his fundraising is going, evidence his reputation isn’t suffering from Lake’s alleged remarks.
They said, “Richer crowed, ‘Name ID at highest point’ and ‘Polls for primary and general looking good.’ In his own words, Richer’s ‘reputation and good name’ are stronger than they’ve ever been. Yet he has spent the last several months telling every sympathetic journalist and political sycophant he meets that his reputation is in tatters.”
Lake’s letter observed that the local attorneys named as representing Richer aren’t doing the actual work and wondered why a large New York law firm, a Harvard law professor, and Protect Democracy “with no ties to Arizona have such a keen interest in a state court defamation case that Richer supposedly filed on his own behalf.”
They rejected the scheduling order proposed by Richer, since it “looks barely different than the scheduling order filed last year, which contemplated a full-blown dispute on the merits of the case, rather than just a determination of Richer’s damages.” The letter asserted, “This merely underscores our point above: the purpose of this lawsuit was to launch a barrage of court filings and burdensome discovery demands from lawyers in New York and Washington, D.C. to bleed Kari’s Lake’s finances during the 2024 Arizona race for U.S. Senator.”
They quoted several of Richer’s posts on X where he gloated about how lengthy and massive the trial was going to be. “We’re ready, and have been ready for some months, to start discovery,” he said. “Lotta documents, recordings, etc we’d like to look at. And depositions… we’re gonna need a bigger boat…”
We’re ready, and have been ready for some months, to start discovery.
Lotta documents, recordings, etc we’d like to look at.
And depositions… we’re gonna need a bigger boat… https://t.co/8e4yk0V9Za
— Stephen Richer—MaricopaCountyRecorder (prsnl acct) (@stephen_richer) March 20, 2024
Lake’s attorneys denounced misleading characterizations by progressives of Lake’s decision to settle.
“We have been quite stunned to witness the litany of self-proclaimed ‘experts’ — ‘high profile election lawyer’ Attorney Tom Ryan, Deputy Attorney General and ‘Super Lawyer’ Dan Barr, Arizona Republic Opinionist E.J. Montini, to name a few — argue that the default was a blank check from Lake and Richer need only decide now how many zeros to write on it,” they said.
The letter was skeptical of Richer’s ability to prove much in damages. Citing leading case law, including Trans World Airlines v. Hughes, they said that “conclusory allegations and speculative damages claims are given zero consideration at a damages hearing following default.” The court said, “The default judgment did not give TWA a blank check to recover from Toolco any losses it had ever suffered from whatever source.”
Lake’s attorneys referred to Richer’s complaint as “the product of a wondrous and unparalleled data mining effort into virtually every single statement Kari Lake made about Richer before and after the 2022 election.”
They said, “Please allow us to express our deep admiration to the dozens of ‘Project Democracy’ interns who, fueled by Red Bull and Cherry Pop Tarts, likely worked late into the night with the thankless job of combing the internet for every word ever uttered by Kari Lake so Richer’s lawyers could produce the 45-page, 213-paragraph Amended Complaint.”
They said Richer’s “first problem” is he can’t show “proximate causation.” The attorneys cited Richer’s remarks about Donald Trump and his performance as recorder as reasons why his reputation may have suffered damage. Additionally, “Richer must be consumed by either naivety or megalomania (or both) to assume that he’s the one politician in the history of the United States subjected to harsh criticism or even threats of violence. … Richer’s alleged harms … are part and parcel of being an elected official.”
Lake’s attorneys expressed their skepticism about Richer proving damages by including the cost of the security system he installed at his home. “Richer had to pay some bucks for a home security system — which is what any other family in Arizona would have to spend,” they said.
They were also skeptical of his claim that he incurred medical costs due to the “toll on Richer’s physical and mental health,” noting that “[b]y placing his medical condition at issue, Richer waived any right to privilege or privacy relative to his medical records and treatment.” They asked him to “consent to a compulsory examination under Rule 35 of the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure, or if we must seek a court order for the same.”
The letter said the “Court need only set a hearing date and the milestones leading up to it, such as the disclosure of witnesses and evidence,” instead of Richer’s lengthy proposed scheduling order.
They declined Richer’s request for an ESI protocol, which refers to emails (electronically stored information). The letter said, “That you would even ask for such a protocol underscores our contention that Richer’s lawsuit is intended primarily to drain Kari Lake of financial resources during the 2024 election.” They added, “You are reminded of your and your clients obligation to preserve evidence should Defendants elect to bring claims for abuse of process of malicious prosecution in the future.”
Last month, AZ Free News revealed that Richer had staff compile articles and online content related to his defamation lawsuit against Lake. No action was taken against him for using public resources for a private or election-related purpose.
Also, the letter objected to Richer’s demand for a confidentiality order, pointing out that the burden is on him to convince the court of its necessity.
They added, “We do, however, note the irony in Richer’s patron attorneys giving lip service to ‘transparency,’ ‘voting rights and democracy,’ and ‘fact based debate’ while simultaneously advocating for a confidentiality order to keep information in this case hidden from the public.”
They cited case law, which states that it is “undisputed that the public has a constitutional and common law right of access to observe court proceedings.”
Richer faces a reelection challenge in the Republican primary, State Representative Justin Heap (R-Mesa). Heap said he believes 300,000 Republican voters were disenfranchised in 2022 and is backed by the Arizona Legislature’s Freedom Caucus.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Kari Lake” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
