Kari Lake has just filed a notice of appeal after the judge in her election case ordered her to pay $33,000 in legal fees to Katie Hobbs.
The fees aren’t part of sanctions requested by Katie Hobbs, which the judge denied, but are to compensate Hobbs for having to bring in expert witnesses as part of her defense.
Here’s more via Fox News:
An Arizona judge has ordered Republican Kari Lake to pay $33,000 in legal fees to Democratic Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs after dismissing Lake’s bid to overturn the results of the 2022 gubernatorial election.
Lake filed a notice of appeal Tuesday after Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson ordered her to compensate expert witnesses that defended election officials against Lake’s claims. Hobbs won the election by about 17,000 votes and had sought additional sanctions against her defeated Republican opponent, but the judge rejected her request.
“There is no doubt that each side believes firmly in its position with great conviction,” Thompson wrote. “The fact that plaintiff [Lake] failed to meet the burden of clear and convincing evidence … does not equate to a finding that her claims were, or were not, groundless and presented in bad faith.”
The court had heard arguments from Lake that problems with ballot printers at some polling places on Election Day were the result of intentional misconduct. She also produced expert testimony that purported to show how frustrations with tabulator malfunctions depressed Republican voter turnout, affecting the outcome of the election.
Thompson rejected these arguments “because of faulty underpinnings in fact, unsupported assumptions and foundation,” finding that Lake did not show clear and convincing evidence the election tainted by intentional misconduct.
In last week’s ruling, the judge acknowledged the “anger and frustration” of voters who were inconvenienced in the election but noted that setting aside the results of an election “has never been done in the history of the United States.”
Lake is now asking the Arizona Supreme Court to hear her case.
“I am standing up for the people of this state. The people who were done wrong on Election Day and the millions of people who live outside of Maricopa County, whose vote was watered down by this bogus election in Maricopa County,” Lake said on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast Tuesday.
Just like with this lower court decision, I doubt Lake will convince the court to side with her. Not because her arguments aren’t strong enough to warrant a victory, but because there seems to be quite a bit of prejudice against her already.
I read a great opinion piece on this yesterday at Town Hall and I encourage you to click over and read it. It essentially explains why the judge was wrong to set the bar so high for Lake, especially when there are plenty of precedents with much lower bars in similar election cases.