One Democratic attorney, who played a huge role in the Trump-Russia controversy, may be receiving a hefty paycheck for battling Kari Lake in her recently rejected 2022 election lawsuit in a bid to overturn the results of last month’s gubernatorial race.
On Monday, both Maricopa County and Arizona Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs filed motions against Lake and her attorneys, requesting penalties to cover for attorneys’ fees, which may amount to as much as $700,000, according to an estimate from the AZ Law blog.
Most of those funds could go toward Marc Elias, a well known lawyer who directed funding from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, which would go toward Christopher Steele’s now-discredited anti-Trump dossier.
Hobbs filed motions in her capacity as Arizona’s secretary of state, the top elections position in the state, and candidate. As a candidate, she declared $56,585 in “definite” fees and expenses for last week’s trial, of which $35,762.50 is for Elias’ firm, the Elias Law Group.
Another $20,822.50 was listed for the Perkins Coie law firm, Elias’ former employer during the 2016 election.
The filing also describes estimated fees “for additional legal services in connection with the election contest,” which comes in at about $457,032.50 for the Elias Law Group and $93,177.50 for Perkins Coie.
Hobbs and Maricopa County were sued by Lake, the Republican candidate bearing an endorsement from former President Donald Trump, after the results of the election showed that she lost the November contest to Hobbs by approximately 17,000 votes.
Maricopa County was rife with issues during the November 8 election, including printer and tabulation machine-related issues. Lake then filed a suit claiming thousands of Republican voters had been disenfranchised, arguing “hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected the election in Maricopa County.”
Eight out of Lake’s 10 claims were almost immediately rejected, but Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson allowed two claims to proceed, having to do with allegations of intentional misconduct related to malfunctioning ballot printers, and a failure to follow ballot chain-of-custody procedures.
After a brief trial in Phoenix, the judge determined on Saturday that Lake and her witnesses had failed to make an adequate case, even after being granted limited ballot inspections. Lake vowed to appeal the ruling.
Attorneys for Maricopa County argued in their 16-page filing that Lake’s suit was “groundless” and “not made in good faith,” also claiming that Lake attacked the court’s integrity after the lawsuit was dismissed, citing a now-deleted tweet sharing a link to a Townhall column, highlighting a line that says, “Legal experts believe his decision was ghostwritten, they suspect top left-wing attorneys like Marc Elias emailed him [the judge] what to say.”
Elias himself responded to the claim, remarking, “A few days ago I asked what conspiracy theory Kari Lake would offer for why she lost her election contest lawsuit. It is more insane than even I predicted.”
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