Dear Kari
A Note to Kari Lake
Dear Kari:
I have citizens offering to hire me (and my team) to represent you. Here’s why.
Your attorneys have yet to win a single issue for you. Your case is still alive—despite their best efforts—because of my work (this is clear to any rational person that takes the time to compare my amicus brief’s signature verification argument to your lawyers’ filings, see below). As the AZSC confirmed yesterday by issuing sanctions (something exceedingly rare), your lawyers have misled “the tribunal by false statements of law or fact or evidence that the lawyer knows to be false.”1
Over the past few months, I’ve had multiple attorneys approach me asking me what the heck your team is doing. I don’t blame them because, for instance, there is no legal reason for you to look at the signatures on absentee envelopes given that these signatures cannot be tied to any ballots; so, you are wasting time and money on irrelevant issues based on bad advice.
What is most upsetting to me, is that I told Brian months ago that I had people offering to hire me to help your team. Now, I wonder if you ever even learned of this offer.
Your case should have been over months ago—ending with you taking your rightful place as Arizona’s Governor. Instead, your lawyers doubled down on bad arguments resulting in their being sanctioned for lying to the Court (per the Court’s Order “[b]ecause Lake’s attorney has made false factual statements to the Court, we conclude that the extraordinary remedy of a sanction under ARCAP 25 is appropriate.”).
So, if you’re still wondering what just happened in the SC, here’s why your attorneys were so far off the mark.
1. Does the record reflect, as your lawyers repeatedly argued, that Maricopa County inserted 35K votes into the chain of custody on Election Day? No, this is nonsense.
a. In the AZSC, your team argued that Trial Exhibit 33 (including a compilation of forms titled "MC Incoming Scan Receipts") reflects the number of (early) mail-in-ballot-packets (MIBPs) scanned by Runbeck each day during the voting period. For the MIBPs scanned by Runbeck on Election Day, these forms showed 298K votes. So far, this is correct. However, in your most recent SC filings, your lawyers highlighted the "Runbeck Receipt of Delivery forms" (RRoDFs) and argued that these reflect all Maricopa County early ballots delivered to Runbeck prior to Runbeck scanning the ballots. Your attorneys specifically noted the RRoDFs from evidence that were hand marked for "Election Day" or "Election Night" and argued that these forms show a total of 263K ballots. Thus, per this theory, there was a clear discrepancy of 35K unaccounted votes.
b. The obvious problem with this theory was explained—very clearly—in MC's original Reply Brief to your Petition for Review in the SC. The county noted: "'Receipt of Delivery' forms are those used throughout the early voting process to record early ballot packets delivered from both the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (“MCTEC”) and the United States Postal Service (“USPS”) to Runbeck for scanning." Furthermore, those pages "do not reflect all early ballot packets deposited by voters at vote centers on Election Day. Indeed, some of the pages Lake appended to her Petition record ballots delivered from USPS to Runbeck on Election Day or those retrieved from USPS after Election Day, which are considered late and not tabulated." Instead of accepting these clearly established facts, your lawyers doubled down on a stupid argument with an impermissible Motion for Reconsideration. Now, your attorneys have been sanctioned for repeatedly making “frivolous arguments,” and this isn’t the first case that you’ve had this happen based on their bad advice. I warned Brian on May 3 that sanctions were probable (despite my hope that they wouldn’t come); he told me to “stay out of his ***ing inbox.”
2. So, was it even necessary for your team to assert false facts before doubling down on a poorly reasoned filing for the CoC issue?
a. No, because you had already established that MCTEC employees, in fact, counted only 275K election day MIBPs at MCTEC before these were sent to Runbeck, which later (inexplicably) reported scanning in 298K MIBPs. Thus, as I’ve repeatedly explained to your team, you had already met your burden of showing a number of impacted votes (25K) exceeding the margin of victory (17K) for the CoC issue. Instead of making a substantive argument supported by facts and possibly winning, your lawyers lied and sacrificed the CoC issue.
b. As for your lawyers’ repeated assertions that MCTEC did not count the number of ballots when the ballot containers were opened at MCTEC on Election Day (as required by law), this is also amazingly antithetical to the facts that were clearly established at trial. Indeed, at trial, Blehm asked Richer to explain his announcement, via Twitter on the morning of November 9, that MC received 275K+ mail-in-ballot-packets, which were dropped off at vote centers on Election Day (relative to the 298K discrepancy from the MC Incoming Scan Receipts shown by Runbeck later that evening). Per Richer's testimony, these ballots (referring to the 275K) were sorted at MCTEC from midnight until 5:00 a.m. on November 9 before being counted and sent to Runbeck for scanning. On the stand, when Richer was asked whether MIBPs are counted as a matter of course when they arrive at MCTEC and the sealed transport bins are opened, including those received on Election Day, he unequivocally responded with, “[c]orrect.” See Tr. of Proceedings, Day 1 at 30. Referring to the sealed boxes used to transport mail-in ballot packets from voting centers to MCTEC, Defendant Richer testified, “so these boxes were coming in and as we were organizing them, we were assessing them by tray before confirming the official count, and that’s how I most likely got that estimate number.” Id. Thus, again, your lawyers’ position was clearly antithetical to the established factual record. Worse yet, it exceeded what was necessary to prove the point on the CoC issue.
I do not want to live under the illegitimate rule of “Governor” Hobbs any longer. I’m done being nice. Your attorneys suck, and my brief (Glory to God) is the only reason they weren’t sanctioned worse (see highlighted Order, below). You should fire them. I’m the only one that’s won anything for you.
Sincerely yours,
Ryan
P.S. If your name is not Kari Lake, please share this on social media and tag her and my personal account (Twitter & Instagram). The fate of Arizona depends on Kari coming to terms with reality.
**** This post reflects the personal views of Ryan Heath as an individual. This post is NOT related to The Gavel Project as a public charity. ****
Signature verification argument from Lake’s attorneys:
My signature verification argument & SC Order:
The original post called her lawyers “incompetent.” I’ve changed this language on the advice of a wise friend. I’m not a perfect human being, and this statement was prideful. To Brian and Ken, I am sorry for using epithets to describe you. I’ve updated this post a few hours after publication to reflect the facts and remove my ego.