Claiming the suit is meant to “deter, retaliate against and prevent” her from exercising her free speech, Arizona sore loser Kari Lake asked a judge to dismiss a defamation suit brought against her by a Maricopa County election official whom Lake targeted in speeches and social media posts, the Arizona Republic reports.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer is suing for unspecified damages and punitive payments, claiming he and his family became targets of threats after Lake set her mob on him. Richer sued Lake on five charges of defamation, filing a 104-page, detailed account of specific incidents Lake named Richer or his office and her claims that he was responsible for letting 300,000 bogus ballots into the final vote tally; no such block of fake votes has ever been identified.
Lake, however, argued that her statements were just opinions and that those opinions are free speech, even when they assert provably untrue issues as fact. “Even a court decision finding insufficient evidence to support a fraud claim to challenge election results is not a finding that the statements are objectively false and cannot be the basis of an opinion about the fairness of an election,” Lake’s motion to dismiss reads.