Under oath, Kari Lake refuses to concede losses in elections for governor and Senate

WASHINGTON – Kari Lake – the former Phoenix newscaster who claimed to be the lawful governor of Arizona despite losing the election – has again refused to acknowledge defeat in that 2022 contest, or in her Senate bid two years later.

This time the Republican’s election denial was under oath.

“The Senate race was confirmed for Ruben Gallego. It was certified. Pardon me. Certified,” she said during a Sept. 9 deposition involving mass firings at Voice of America that she oversaw as head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

Gallego, a Democrat, won the Senate seat by more than 80,000 votes out of roughly 3.3 million, a margin of 2.4 percentage points.

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Two years earlier, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs topped Lake by 17,117 votes out of about 2.6 million, a margin of about 0.6 percentage points.

Lake refused to accept Hobbs’ victory, claiming publicly and in court that fraud cost her the election.

“I am the lawful governor of Arizona. The current occupant of the governor’s office is just a squatter,” Lake wrote in a memoir, published in June 2023, titled “Unafraid: Just Getting Started.”

Lake went to court trying to overturn the 2022 outcome. She lost at each stage but repeatedly refused to acknowledge defeat.

She conceded the 2024 Senate election by saying her campaign was over – again without acknowledging that she’d lost.

Shortly after Election Day, she settled a defamation lawsuit with the former Maricopa County recorder, fellow Republican Stephen Richer, who sued Lake and her husband over their false claims about fraud in 2022. Richer lost the 2024 GOP primary.

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Lake’s press office did not respond to questions about her deposition testimony.

She promoted President Donald Trump’s debunked allegations about widespread cheating in the 2020 election.

In March, Trump named Lake to run USAGM with the title senior adviser. She quickly set about dismantling the agency at his direction, firing about 1,400 workers – 85% of the workforce.

The lawsuit from VOA journalists alleges that she unlawfully shuttered the agency. They argue that only Congress can undo USAGM’s mandate and strip its funding.

Voice of America, one of the agency’s largest networks, provided news in about 50 languages to global audiences for more than eight decades, particularly in countries with limited press freedom.

The deposition lasted more than eight hours.

Lake appeared under threat of a contempt of court citation by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who was appointed to the bench by Republican Ronald Reagan.

A transcript of the testimony shows her repeatedly avoiding a direct answer about the outcome of her two statewide races.

When an attorney for the fired journalists asked what happened in the governor’s race, she replied: “Well, I think the results were questionable. But the result is that I’m sitting here running the U.S. Agency for Global Media.”

She gave a similar response when asked about the Senate race: “As I said, I’m sitting here at the U.S. Agency for Global Media.”

Lake deflected several more efforts to elicit a clear assertion that she had won at the polls, or an affirmation that she had lost.

“The result of the election is that I’m sitting here in Washington, D.C., working for the Trump administration,” she said.

Finally, the lawyer asked whether she had won or lost the Senate race. That’s when she said the outcome had been “certified” in Gallego’s favor.

For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.