News/Commentary

Kari Lake witness SHUTS DOWN condescending defense attorney in must see trial highlight

December 22, 2022 | | Print Article

According to election integrity investigator Heather Honey, the failure of Arizona officials to maintain a “chain of custody” for the ballots in Maricopa County makes it “impossible” to know how many of more than 290,000 Election Day drop-off ballots were transferred to the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) for counting.

It’s an explosive start to a lawsuit filed on Dec. 9 by Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake against her Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.

In her testimony, Honey, who has spent more than three decades as an investigator and supply chain expert, sent the defense attorney “packing” after he attempted to intimidate her on the stand with a condescending “loaded legal question.”

“You’re not an attorney, correct?” defense attorney Tom Liddy asked Honey.

The witness shook her head.

“Okay,” he responded. “So, I’m going to ask you a legal question, but you only have to answer if you have an understanding about it.”

“If you don’t have an understanding,” he said, “it’s perfectly fine to say, ‘I don’t know.'”

He then tried to trip Honey up on the definition of an “unlawful ballot.”

“Are you aware that under Arizona Law a ballot is not actually unlawful, if it is, the term that is used sometimes is harvested or ballot collection, but if somebody who’s not authorized to handle it deposits it, or,” he continued, “like what happened in Runbeck, if somebody brings it and inserts it into the stream, but not into a designated, authorized dropbox, are you aware that under Arizona law that is not actually an unlawful ballot?”

“The term in the law is an invalid ballot,” Honey replied, utterly destroying the ill-conceived “gotcha” moment.

At the root of the matter, explained Honey, are missing delivery receipts for ballots that were picked up by supposedly bipartisan couriers for transportation to MCTEC, according to The Ohio Star.

With each container of ballots in Maricopa County, a chain of custody (COC) form is included, but it does not include the number of ballots that were delivered. That number is noted by a recorder or an appointee at MCTEC, who is tasked with unsealing the container of ballots and counting them. The tally is noted on a delivery receipt, which then goes with the box of ballots to Runbeck Election Services, which claims to be “defending Democracy one ballot at a time.”

“When making a public records request to Maricopa County, Honey said she did not receive these delivery receipts from the county, which allegedly said it misplaced them,” The Star reported. “According to word she received from a Runbeck employee, those slips did not exist. Honey said none of the election day drop-off ballots had proper COC, which amount to over 290,000.”

Honey says she spoke to a Runbeck whistleblower, Denise Marie, who told her that Runbeck employees enjoyed a “perk” and were able to bring ballots cast by friends and family members to add to the total.

“Marie said she saw others doing this with at least 50 ballots and thought the practice was ‘questionable,'” the outlet states.

“I think that the failure to have chain of custody makes it impossible to know how many ballots were or were not transferred,” Honey testified. “I think that there’s just no way to know the answer, and that’s the problem.”

Also among Lake’s witnesses was roving attorney Mark Sonnenklar, who visited ten Maricopa voting centers.

“Well, it was really pandemonium out there, everywhere,” Sonnenklar said of the botched election. “Everyone was just freaked out.”

He alleged that the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors may have intentionally downplayed the amount of time voters had to wait in line to vote in a report to the Attorney General’s Office in an attempt to deceive and cover up the many problems that plagued the county on Election Day.

Former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias tried to dismiss the day’s testimony as a nothing burger.

“I would say ‘roving attorney’ and ‘chaos’ are probably the best descriptions of his testimony as well,” he said of Sonnenklar.

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1605714156371333120?s=20&t=8BToUoqJ0r-eJFtk4-Zprw

But few are buying the gas Elias seems desperate to light.

“It’s not possible you watched today’s hearing and actually thought it went well for @katiehobbs,” replied popular YouTuber and attorney Viva Frei. “It was an abject disaster.”

 

Melissa Fine
Latest posts by Melissa Fine (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles