Kari Lake, a former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, claimed on Saturday that she had been given a bribe to remain out of politics for two years.
During CPAC in 2023, Lake stated, “Something occurred to me this week before I left, and it demonstrates how desperate these people are to stop me” (CPAC).
“Somebody showed up at my door this week,” Lake continued. “They called me before and said: I gotta talk to you in person, this can’t be done over the phone … They came to my door and they tried to bribe me out of getting out of politics. This really happened. I’m telling you this because this is how disgusting politics is. A mom who runs for office and they’re afraid of me? They tried to bribe me with a job title, with a huge salary, a position on a board.”
Although narrowly losing the governor’s race in Arizona to Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, Lake refused to concede and continued to fight the results in court.
At least 20% of the voting locations had tabulation system issues, which caused the election to be tainted. Local officials apologized, and a Republican lawsuit to extend voting hours was dismissed by a Maricopa County judge.
Despite Hobbs’ request for punishment, the judge dismissed Lake’s initial legal lawsuit contesting the election.
According to reports, Lake is thinking about running in 2024 for the Senate seat currently held by Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who broke with the Democratic Party on January 23. On January 23, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego declared his candidacy for the position.
Lake claimed she was asked to pick her price “to drop out of politics for two years” and that she rejected the offer to sit out. “Let your handlers back east know that I can’t name a price, because there is no price that I would sell out my country for,” she said, “because there is no price that I would sell my country for.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Lake said.
