Arizona governor-elect Katie Hobbs on Monday asked a court to sanction Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake over her effort to overturn the state’s election results.
An Arizona judge on Saturday rejected Lake’s lawsuit that challenged the counting and certification of the November electoral contest in a bid to be declared the winner.
Hobbs joined a motion by Maricopa County for sanctions on Lake and her attorneys in which the county’s deputy attorney Thomas Liddy wrote Lake filed a “groundless” lawsuit for a “frivolous pursuit,” court documents showed.
Photo: AFP
“Enough really is enough,” Liddy wrote in the motion. “It is past time to end unfounded attacks on elections and unwarranted accusations against elections officials.”
Maricopa County’s motion had “no basis in law or fact,” Lake’s lawyers wrote in a response filed later on Monday, asking the court to deny the request for sanctions.
“Trust in the election process is not furthered by punishing those who bring legitimate claims as plaintiff did here,” the court document filed by Lake’s lawyers said. “In fact, sanctioning plaintiff would have the opposite effect.”
The sanctions would be in the form of a financial penalty imposed by a judge for violation of a court rule or misconduct.
Lake’s lawsuit had targeted Hobbs, who is Arizona’s secretary of state and is to become governor next week, along with top officials in Maricopa County.
Her lawsuit claimed that “hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected the election” in Maricopa, the state’s most populous county.
In a separate court filing, Hobbs also asked the Superior Court in Maricopa County to award her more than US$600,000 to compensate for fees and expenses accrued in defending against Lake’s lawsuit.
Lake lost the governor’s race to Hobbs, but her campaign has refused to concede and wrote on Twitter that she plans to appeal Saturday’s ruling.
“Maricopa County is now working in conjunction with Marc Elias to criminalize election challenges,” her campaign wrote on Monday, referring to a legal counsel for the Democratic governor-elect. “We stand by the evidence of our case and believe we will win on appeal. Should sanctions be granted in this case you will know that we truly live in a Banana Republic.”
Additional reporting by staff writer
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
The Russian minister of foreign affairs warned the US, South Korea and Japan against forming a security partnership targeting North Korea as he visited the ally country for talks on further solidifying their booming military and other cooperation. Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov spoke on Saturday in Wonsan City, North Korea, where he met North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un and conveyed greetings from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kim during the meeting reaffirmed his government’s commitment to “unconditionally support and encourage all measures” taken by Russia in its conflict with Ukraine. Pyongyang and Moscow share identical views on “all strategic issues in
The United States Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment. “We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats.” The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and the potential for espionage. The U.S. has
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
RSS