Arizona GOP Chair Resigns After Kari Lake Threatens "More Damaging" Recording
Update (1445ET): That didn't take long.
One day after the Daily Mail published a leaked recording of Arizona GOP Chairman Jeff DeWit trying to bribe Trump ally Kari Lake to stay out of politics for two years, DeWit resigned.
"This morning, I was determined to fight for my position," he said in a statement reported by Just the News. "However, a few hours ago, I received an ultimatum from Lake's team: resign today or face the release of a new, more damaging recording. I am truly unsure of its contents, but considering our numerous past open conversations as friends, I have decided not to take the risk. I am resigning as Lake requested, in the hope that she will honor her commitment to cease her attacks, allowing me to return to the business sector—a field I find much more logical and prefer over politics."
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Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake called on the state's GOP chair Jeff DeWit to resign after a recording emerged of him trying to bribe Lake to stay out of politics for two years.
In the recording, first reported by the Daily Mail, DeWit, 51, can be heard asking lake to name her price not to run.
"There are very powerful people who want to keep you out," he can be heard telling her in a conversation recorded last March.
He then, after asking her not to mention the conversation to anyone, makes his first offer:
"So the ask I got today from back east was: "Is there any companies out there or something that could just put her on the payroll to keep her out?"
Lake is taken aback.
"This is about defeating Trump and I think that's a bad, bad thing for our country," she replied.
DeWit later framed it in a different way.
"Just say, is there a number at which -
"I can be bought?" Lake interjected. "That's what it's about?"
"You can take a pause for a couple of years. You can go right back to what you're doing," DeWit replied.
Lake repeatedly shuts him down, and says she wouldn't pull out for a billion dollars.
"This is not about money, it's about our country," she says (one her own recording, we're guessing).
Listen (via Collin Rugg):
BREAKING: Arizona Republican Party chair Jeff DeWit caught on secret recording trying to bribe Kari Lake not to run for the Senate.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 23, 2024
Holy s***!
"There are very powerful people who want to keep you out," he said.
At one point during the secret recording, Lake was asked to name… pic.twitter.com/9r1DoDzITD
Following the report, Lake called on DeWit to resign.
"He’s gotta resign. We can’t have somebody who is corrupt and compromised running the Republican Party," she told an NBC reporter during Trump's New Hampshire primary victory party.
Kari Lake calls for @AZGOP Chair Jeff DeWit to resign after release of audio in which he can be heard bribing Lake to not run for the U.S. Senate in exchange for a potential job (and its salary): https://t.co/8tF4sodXf3 pic.twitter.com/4XBSzoVyYL
— Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) January 24, 2024
Just one question...
Hey @JeffDeWitAZ before you resign, would you mind sharing the names of the "very powerful people" who buy US politicians? https://t.co/MZpE1K9i8z
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 24, 2024
What say you now Eric Garcia, senior Washington Correspondent of The Independent?
