Republican candidate Kari Lake was the target of a defamation lawsuit filed by a senior election official in Maricopa County, Arizona, on Thursday. Kari Lake replied by accusing the official of attempting to silence her.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer claimed he’s faced “violent vitriol and other dire consequences” because of allegations made by Lake about the 2022 midterm elections. Following the election, Lake has filed several lawsuits with various Arizona state courts to claim that irregularities and errors that occurred during the midterms should make her the winner.
“Rather than accept political defeat, rather than get a new job, she has sought to undermine confidence in our elections and has mobilized millions of her followers against me,” Richer wrote in an op-ed published in The Arizona Republic.
Lake has claimed that Richer and other Maricopa County officials meddled in the election to prevent her from defeating Democrat Katie Hobbs, who was inaugurated in as governor in January, in the campaign for governor after multiple cases were dismissed. In the meanwhile, Lake is publicly mulling a bid for the U.S. Senate and is allegedly a top possibility to serve as Trump’s running mate in the 2024 election.
Lake, her campaign, and her political fundraising organization are named as defendants in Richer’s case, which was filed in Maricopa County Superior Court. Richer is requesting a court ruling deeming Lake’s claims fake and ordering her to remove them from social media in addition to undisclosed monetary penalties.
Two of Lake’s claims are contested in his complaint, including the claim that Richer purposefully printed 19-inch ballot pictures on 20-inch paper, creating issues with counting on election day. He further said in the complaint that he deliberately threw 300,000 fictitious votes into the voting process.
In the lawsuit, Lake’s claims were supported by screenshots and links to videos and social media posts.
“Lake Campaign’s false and defamatory statements accused Richer, of among other things, intentionally sabotaging the 2022 election by intentionally having ballot-on-demand printers print the wrong sized ballots,” he wrote in the suit, adding that her statements also “damaged Richer.”
Although Lake had the First Amendment right to criticize him, his attorneys contend that she made false claims that may have been defamatory. “She has gone far outside of the bounds of protected free speech as guaranteed under the First Amendment and the Arizona Constitution,” Richer claimed in The Republic opinion article.
Her Response
Lake responded by writing on her Twitter page that Richer’s lawsuit is an effort to silence her. Lake has previously promised to take her election disputes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
“I’m exposing the massive corruption in our elections and this … is suing me,” Lake wrote on Twitter Thursday. “He wants to silence US … corrupt elections have saddled us with disasters like [Joe] Biden and Hobbs.”
I’m exposing the massive corruption in our elections and this jackass is suing me.
He wants to silence US.
Trump won in a landslide & so did I. Everyone knows it.
Corrupt elections have saddled us with disasters like Biden and hobbs.
Officials who allegedly “orchestrated the wide-spread fraud want us to shut-up and accept it,” she wrote, adding a link to a donation webste. “We won’t. Our country is GONE unless we tackle this problem. They want to stop President Trump. They want to stop me. They want to stop you. Not. Going. To. Happen.”
One of Lake’s legal claims is that on Election Day on November 8, thousands of Republican voters were denied the right to vote due to vote-tabulation system malfunctions at dozens of polling places in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county. She also said that the county’s signature-verification procedure for mail-in votes was allegedly flawed.
The Arizona Supreme Court dismissed Lake’s complaint against Maricopa, Richer, and other state election officials last month, finding that the GOP candidate had not provided sufficient proof of widespread voting fraud. Peter Thompson, a Maricopa County judge, rendered a decision in May that rejected Maricopa County officials’ request for sanctions against Lake and her counsel.
“Even if her argument did not prevail, Lake, through her witness, presented facts consistent with and in support of her legal argument,” Thompson wrote at the time. “The remainder of Defendants’ allegations appear to rely on the Court’s inherent power as the authority by which they request the Court ‘award’ unspecified sanctions ‘against’ Lake’s counsel,” he also said.
The judge said he “acknowledges its inherent authority to sanction bad faith attorney conduct and that the rules of attorney conduct in the Rules of the Supreme Court provide a legal basis for imposing sanctions against attorneys,” according to the ruling However, he stipulated that “opposing litigants in a heated dispute will naturally view the same evidence differently.”
On May 26, a couple of days after County Attorney Rachel Mitchell submitted a motion for sanctions the previous week, Thompson ultimately rejected the request for punishment and the plea for restitution. It happened roughly a day after Thompson decided Lake had not provided sufficient evidence to support her contention that county authorities had not verified tens of thousands of signatures on mail-in votes.
In a disturbing twist to last week’s targeted violence against Minnesota officials, sources reveal that a conspiratorial letter left behind by shooting suspect Vance Boelter accuses Governor Tim Walz of orchestrating a political assassination plot. The letter, addressed to the FBI, allegedly claims Walz instructed Boelter to kill U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar so that Walz could seek her Senate seat—a position he has not expressed any intent to pursue.
Two individuals with direct knowledge of the letter described it as incoherent, one and a half pages long, and filled with paranoid ramblings. The letter allegedly outlines unsubstantiated claims that Boelter was trained “off the books” by the U.S. military, and that Walz had enlisted him to assassinate Klobuchar and potentially other politicians, including a veiled reference to Sen. Tina Smith.
Federal prosecutors say Boelter left the letter in a Buick abandoned near his home in Green Isle, Minnesota. It is believed to include a confession to the killings of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, as well as the shootings of Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette.
Boelter, 57, now faces federal charges including:
Two counts of stalking Rep. Hortman and Sen. Hoffman using interstate facilities;
Two counts of murder in the deaths of the Hortmans;
Two counts of firearm use in the shootings of the Hortmans and Hoffmans.
While federal authorities declined to comment on the letter’s contents, local officials addressed the severity of the situation. Hennepin County Attorney’s Office spokesperson Daniel Borgertpoepping stated they could not comment on an open investigation, but added, “We have seen no evidence that the allegations regarding Governor Walz are based in fact.”
Gov. Walz’s spokesman, Teddy Tschann, called the events “deeply disturbing for all Minnesotans” and praised law enforcement and prosecutors for their swift actions.
Sen. Klobuchar issued a strong response, saying, “Boelter is a very dangerous man and I am deeply grateful that law enforcement got him behind bars before he killed other people.”
Documents obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune also reveal that Boelter held a valid carry license as recently as 2020, issued while he was still affiliated with his family’s private security firm.
With more details likely to surface as the investigation unfolds, the letter marks a chilling insight into Boelter’s delusions—and highlights the growing threats facing public officials.
A new study from the MIT Media Lab has raised concerns about the long-term effects of using artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT on human cognition. The research, released this month, suggests that relying on large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT could impair an individual’s critical thinking abilities, especially with prolonged use.
Researchers observed participants over several months as they completed SAT-style essay assignments. The subjects were divided into three groups: one using ChatGPT, another using Google’s search engine, and a third group relying solely on their own thinking—dubbed the “brain-only” group.
To analyze brain activity during the writing tasks, researchers used electroencephalography (EEG) to monitor neural engagement across different regions of the brain. The results showed a stark difference in cognitive involvement among the groups.
According to the study, those using ChatGPT demonstrated the lowest level of brain engagement. Over time, these participants began to rely more heavily on the AI, eventually moving from asking structural questions to simply copying and pasting complete essays. The researchers noted that this group “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.”
Participants who used Google showed moderate brain activity, while the “brain-only” group displayed the strongest and most widespread neural activity, indicating deeper cognitive involvement throughout the writing process.
The study’s lead author, Nataliya Kosmyna, emphasized the urgency of the findings, particularly as AI tools become more integrated into education.
“What really motivated me to put it out now before waiting for a full peer review is that I am afraid in 6–8 months, there will be some policymaker who decides, ‘let’s do GPT kindergarten.’ I think that would be absolutely bad and detrimental,” Kosmyna told Time
magazine. “Developing brains are at the highest risk.”
The study highlights growing concerns among educators about how easily accessible AI tools are enabling academic dishonesty and changing how students learn. Despite these concerns, AI integration in classrooms appears to be accelerating.
In April, former President Donald Trump signed an executive order promoting the use of AI in American schools. The policy aims to prepare young students for a future economy shaped by AI advancements.
“The basic idea of this executive order is to ensure that we properly train the workforce of the future by ensuring that school children, young Americans, are adequately trained in AI tools, so that they can be competitive in the economy years from now into the future, as AI becomes a bigger and bigger deal,” White House staff secretary Will Scharf said at the time.
As the debate over AI’s role in education continues, this new research may fuel broader discussions on how to balance technological innovation with cognitive development—especially for younger generations.
SACRAMENTO, CA — Former Los Angeles Mayor and current California gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa has publicly alleged that Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra were involved in concealing former President Joe Biden’s mental and physical decline during his time in office.
Villaraigosa, a Democrat, made the claim amid a heated California gubernatorial race. Becerra, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services, is also a candidate, while speculation continues over a potential Harris bid. The race comes as current Governor Gavin Newsom reaches the end of his second and final term, per California’s two-term limit.
In a statement referencing recent reporting and excerpts from the book Original Sin, Villaraigosa stated:
“What I’ve seen in news coverage and excerpts from the new book ‘Original Sin’ is deeply troubling. At the highest levels of our government, those in power were intentionally complicit or told outright lies in a systematic cover up to keep Joe Biden’s mental decline from the public.”
Both Harris and Becerra previously served as California Attorney General. Villaraigosa emphasized their past leadership roles, stating:
“Now, we have come to learn this cover up includes two prominent California politicians who served as California Attorney General – one who is running for Governor and another who is thinking about running for Governor.”
He added:
“Those who were complicit in the cover up should take responsibility for the part they played in this debacle, hold themselves accountable, and apologize to the American people. I call on Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra to do just that – and make themselves available to voters and the free press because there’s a lot of questions that need to be answered.”
Becerra responded in a statement, saying:
“It’s clear the President was getting older, but he made the mission clear: run the largest health agency in the world, expand care to millions more Americans than ever before, negotiate down the cost of prescription drugs, and pull us out of a world-wide pandemic. And we delivered.”
Kamala Harris has not issued a public response. Fox News Digital reported that it reached out to the offices of Harris and the Bidens but had not received a reply at the time of publication.
The allegations come as discussions about Biden’s cognitive and physical health continue. Earlier this month, during an appearance on The View, Biden dismissed claims of cognitive decline during his presidency.
In related developments, Biden’s personal office recently confirmed that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer characterized by a high Gleason score and metastasis to the bone.
Villaraigosa’s comments are the latest in a growing list of concerns raised within the Democratic Party about leadership transparency and accountability in the final years of the Biden administration.
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