Senate candidate and Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb claims that his primary opponent, 2022 gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, offered him a position in President Donald Trump’s presidential cabinet in exchange for him to quit this race.
Lamb wrote in a since-publicized campaign email that Lake had been a supporter of his up until this race, and that she had initially asked him to run for U.S. Senate before her gubernatorial aspirations were shot.
“In fact, Kari asked me to run for US Senator. When her legal proceedings didn’t pan the way she wanted to for Governor of Arizona, she jumped on the Senator trail. She offered me a cabinet position with Donald Trump (which she is not allowed to offer) and even tried to intimidate me saying we do not have enough money to run. Not to mention, she has switched from Republican to Democrat (and has donated to the Democratic party) then back to Republican. I have remained, throughout my elected terms a conservative Republican.”
https://x.com/JLF1213/status/1813624330179449179
If the allegations are true, then Lake would be guilty of a bribery attempt similar to the one that she revealed ousted GOP Chair Jeff DeWit had leveled against her. Lake’s leak of her and DeWit’s conversation had resulted in his resignation in January, prompted not only by that leaked conversation but by the alleged threat of another, more incriminating, and unreleased audio recording of him.
Lamb issued the email in response to Lake’s interview Wednesday with KTAR’s The Mike Broomhead Show outside the RNC convention. In that speech, Lake mentioned that she and former President Donald Trump have been “reaching the olive branch” to Republican opposition, which would include Lamb — though Lake didn’t mention Lamb by name throughout the entire interview.
“We’re going to have a massive cleanup job after the last three-and-a-half, almost four years of Joe Biden and these disastrous policies of the Democrat Party,” said Lake. “It’s going to take all of us to do it. I want all Republicans involved in this movement, I want independence, I actually want disaffected Democrats to come on over because when we all come together as Americans there’s absolutely nothing we can’t accomplish.”
Lake insisted that she was the better candidate because she had the greater financial backing.
“The Democrats always find money from God-knows-where and God-knows-who, and this is why it’s important to have somebody in this race on the ticket who actually has that name ID, that’s able to raise money across the country,” said Lake. “It’s going to take money from across the country to win this race and I’m positioned to do that.”
Lake declined to participate in a debate with Lamb last month.
Most of Lake’s focus on criticizing opponents in recent weeks has been on Democratic candidate Ruben Gallego, and less so on Lamb as her primary opponent explicitly.