Arizona judge denies sanctions against Kari Lake and her legal team

A judge in Maricopa County denied a motion to enact sanctions against former GOP Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and her legal team.

An Arizona judge earlier this week dismissed Lake's challenge of her 2022 gubernatorial election loss against Democrat Katie Hobbs. 

Lawyers for Maricopa County, the largest county in Arizona, filed a sanctions request after the trial, stating that Lake claiming the 2022 gubernatorial election rigged was “heinous and profoundly harmful.”

Judge Peter Thompson ruled Friday that Lake's failure to prove her claims through evidence, doesn't mean it was "groundless" and "not made in good faith."

"Even if her argument did not prevail, Lake, through her witness, presented facts consistent with and in support of her legal argument," Thompson wrote.

Since losing to current Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, Lake has contested the results of the 2022 election in court, arguing that thousands of Republican voters were disenfranchised on Election Day, when voting machine errors occurred in at least 60% of the voting centers in Maricopa County. She also pointed out major problems with the signature verification process for mail-in ballots.

Lake has vowed to take her election lawsuit all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.