Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who went into Election Day 2022 with a stunning 11-point poll lead, was declared to have lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs after an Election Day fraught with irregularities and more than a week of counting and debate. Lake has continually insisted since then that the Arizona election was stolen from her and brought a lawsuit to try and prove it. Evidence presented in the lawsuit includes the report that nearly a quarter of a million ballots were rejected in Arizona on Election Day in a race that came down to a gap of 17,000 votes. But Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes has now requested fellow Democrat and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes to investigate and consider Kari Lake for charges of class 6 felony in a Jan. 30 letter.
Why? The Epoch Times said that Lake’s potential felony offense, according to Fontes, is that her “Twitter account shared a graphic containing images of voter signatures on ballots she identified as having been ‘illegally counted.’” She shared 16 images of early ballot affidavits compared to voter registration record signatures, which Fontes claimed was a class six felony violation. An Arizona statute forbids the unauthorized disclosure of voter registration information. “Vigor and strength. That’s the only way we protect our election workers and fight back against disinformation,” Fontes tweeted.
But according to Lake, the information she shared had already been made public by the Arizona Senate — and it might be of personal interest to Fontes because the evidence is from 2020 when Fontes was Maricopa County recorder. If the accusation of illegally counted ballots were to be proved in the future, Fontes would be one of those responsible.
Kari Lake said on Steve Bannon’s War Room on Jan. 31:
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who was a cartel lawyer, and obviously he’s been covering cartel law, not constitutional law, because he is suggesting that Kris Mayes, the newly selected AG, criminally prosecute me on felony charges for putting out information on Twitter, they say, that breaks the law. It was the signature verification stuff. . .they say because I put it out on the internet it broke the law. This was information that was released about a week ago, and as public evidence in a[n] Arizona Senate hearing on election fraud.
And this information was made public through the Arizona Senate, we put the information out, you just saw us put it out again; this information, by the way, was shared through the Arizona Senate. . .it was streamed live across the world. He wants Kris Mayes, the AG, to criminally prosecute me for telling people about the exorbitant levels of fraud in our election. . .they just don’t want us talking about the election theft.
To explain the “cartel lawyer” reference, Fontes defended cartel criminals over ten years ago. Breitbart reported on how Fontes’s cartel links made many question his ability to run honest elections in 2018 as Maricopa County recorder. Before he entered politics, Fontes was an attorney who defended clients accused in firearms and narco-terrorism scandals.
Maricopa County recorder Adrian Fontes defended Manuel Celis-Acosta in 2011 after an arrest for involvement in the Fast and Furious government gun-running scandal … Celis-Acosta reportedly transferred thousands of guns to the Sinaloa Cartel. This included the firearm used to kill Border Patrol agent Brian Terry … That same year, [Fontes] defended Emilia Palomina-Robles, who was charged for participation in attempting to “purchase a Stinger missile and other military weapons for a Mexican drug cartel.
Besides the cartel lawyer history, Fontes was accused of potential election mismanagement in both 2018 and 2020.
Whether you think Lake is right or wrong about the controversial 2022 election, her popularity is still strong in Arizona, and Democrats might see her as a threat. Lake told Bannon that new polling obtained by consultants showed her the most popular Republican in Arizona. That claim is supported by the fact that Lake’s recent Scottsdale, Ariz., rally had four times the amount of people reportedly trying to attend than the venue could hold. And a December 2022 Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey indicated that Lake was favored by Arizona voters for the Senate race in 2024.
Kari Lake’s lawyer Tim LaSota also released a statement insisting that the information Fontes cited came from the Arizona Senate investigation on “acceptance of clearly mismatched signatures on early ballots” and that Lake sharing the information was First Amendment-protected free speech. LaSota also called the Fontes attack “another attempt to weaponize the justice system.”
Again, whether you think Lake is a heroine or a lunatic, whether you think her persevering or unstable, she undoubtedly refuses to give up once she’s started a fight, and many of the people of Arizona love her for it. Could the Democrats indeed see that as a threat?
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