Financial downfall is an ominous sign for maga liars
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani officially filed for bankruptcy protection on Thursday, December 21 — the day after Judge Beryl Howell ordered him to pay $146 million in damages to former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who sued him for defamation and won.
Giuliani falsely claimed, without evidence, that Freeman and Moss helped now-President Joe Biden steal the 2020 election from then-President Donald Trump — a repeatedly debunked claim the former Trump lawyer doubled down on even after losing the case. And Freeman and Moss, who have been inundated with death threats from Trump supporters, responded by filing a second defamation lawsuit against Giuliani.
Like Giuliani, far-right MAGA Republican and conspiracy theorist Kari Lake — who is running for the U.S. Senate seat presently held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Arizona) — is a major election denialist. Lake was the GOP nominee in Arizona's 2022 gubernatorial election, which she falsely claims was stolen from her by supporters of now-Gov. Katie Hobbs (a Democrat). And according to MSNBC's Steve Benen, Giuliani's legal and financial woes are an ominous sign for her.
In Arizona, the legal dimension to Kari Lake’s political efforts hasn’t gone well for the Republican. The Republican election denier first went to court in April 2022, asking that some local counties be blocked from using electronic election equipment. That lawsuit failed. In the wake of her defeat in her gubernatorial race, Lake filed another lawsuit, ostensibly to present evidence of election irregularities. That didn’t go well, either.
Making matters worse, her lawyers were ultimately sanctioned after judges concluded that the cases shouldn’t even have been filed in the first place.
But as it turns out, Lake’s legal troubles don’t end there. The Arizona Republic reported this week:
A Maricopa County judge ruled Wednesday that a defamation case against former gubernatorial and current U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake will go forward. Judge Jay Adleman determined that Lake failed to provide enough evidence to get the case dismissed outright under a recently revised state law intending to deter lawsuits that seek to censor or intimidate critics.
If you’re new to this story, Lake, in the aftermath of her 2022 defeat, took rhetorical aim at Bill Gates and Steven Richer — two Republican election officials in Maricopa County — accusing them of helping “rig” the state’s gubernatorial race and manipulating ballots.
Richer argued soon after that Lake’s claims not only hurt his professional life and harmed his reputation, but also led to death threats against him and his family. Richer sued the failed candidate for defamation.
Lake’s lawyers asked a judge to throw out the case, describing her conspiracy theories as “rhetorical hyperbole.”
The judge didn’t buy it. We don’t yet know what the outcome of the defamation case might be, but we now know that the litigation will move forward.
Part of this is relevant because Lake is her party’s likely nominee in next year’s closely watched U.S. Senate race in the Grand Canyon State, but there’s also a broader significance.
As MSNBC’s Alex Wagner explained, this Arizona case, coming on the heels of a successful defamation case against Rudy Giuliani, also has “significant implications for what we as a country allow election deniers to get away with.” Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics."
