Arizona Supreme Court says Kari Lake's lawyers lied

PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court says attorneys for failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake lied repeatedly in a court challenge to the election and it is fining them $2,000.

In an order Thursday, Chief Justice Robert Brutinel said there was no factual basis for Lake’s attorneys to claim in court it was “undisputed’’ that 35,563 unaccounted for ballots were added to the total in Maricopa County.

Brutinel said Lake’s side unethically repeated the “false assertions’’ in multiple legal filings.

The high court upheld most of the rulings in lower courts that there was no basis for Lake’s challenge of the November election results, in which the Republican candidate lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs by 17,117 votes.

The justices did agree with Lake on one point, saying she should have been able to present evidence that Maricopa County did not follow its own procedures when verifying signatures on early ballots.

Thursday’s order formally sends the case back to Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson to hear evidence on that point.

There was no immediate comment from Lake other than a Twitter post Thursday with the comment “undisputed” and showing her surrounded by supporters.

The high court rejected, in Thursday’s order, a bid by Hobbs and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who also was named in Lake’s challenge, to force Lake to pay their legal fees in the case.

Lake’s lawsuit alleged mistakes and deliberate actions she said entitled her to a new election. These included claims that someone in Maricopa County intentionally altered printers at voting centers so they would produce ballots that could not be automatically read by on-site tabulators. Closely related were complaints of long lines on Election Day that deterred some people from voting.

Thompson ruled and the Court of Appeals affirmed that Lake failed to present “clear and convincing evidence’’ to back her claims, and did not show that anyone was denied the right to vote. The Supreme Court agreed.

What is left is Lake’s claim the county failed to maintain legally required chain of custody on ballots. Thompson rejected those claims, saying they came too late. The justices disagreed and directed him to hear Lake out.

Nonetheless, the arguments by Lake’s attorneys to the Supreme Court on that issue resulted in the penalty leveled Thursday.

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Lake’s lawyers argued it was “undisputed’’ there were 35,563 unaccounted ballots “injected’’ by Runbeck, a private firm used by Maricopa County, into the total final count.

That isn’t true, Brutinel said.

“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,’’ the chief justice wrote. He said Lake and her attorneys presented nothing in their subsequent legal filings for the court to reconsider the issue.

“Thus, asserting that the alleged fact is ‘undisputed’ is false,’’ Brutinel wrote. “Yet Lake continues to make that assertion.’’

Lake’s argument about those “injected’’ ballots was focused on one exhibit at trial that included an estimate of the number of early ballot packets based on the number of trays; a different exhibit showed a precise count.

At best, Brutinel said, Lake could have argued that “an inference could be made that some ballots were added.’’

But she went further, he said, continuing to argue that it was “undisputed’’ there were an extra 35,563 ballots despite the complete lack of evidence.

Brutinel acknowledged that candidates are free to challenge election procedures and results. Campaign “hyperbole’’ sometimes spills over into those challenges, he said.

“But once a contest enters the judicial arena, rules of attorney ethics apply,’’ he said.

Brutinel said financial sanctions should never be wielded against candidates or their attorneys for asserting their legal rights. But their pleadings have to be “in good faith.’’

“We also must diligently enforce the rules of ethics on which public confidence in our judicial system depends and where the truth-seeking function of our adjudicative process is unjustifiably hindered,’’ Brutinel said. He said financial sanctions are designed to “discourage similar conduct in the future’’ by all lawyers.