Photo: Alamy
New audio that has been shared online and disseminated on social media appears to reveal a sleazy alleged attempt from a Republican senior official in the state of Arizona as he tried to bribe U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake to stay out of the race.
The audio was released exclusively from DailyMail.com and features what they have alleged is the voice of Jeff DeWit, who is the chairman of the Arizona Republican Party. In the audio recording, this person is engaged in a conversation with a woman who sounds like Kari Lake, telling her, “There are very powerful people who want to keep you out.”
The audio is crackled with background noise. It’s hard to confirm what the noise is, but it seems as if Lake and DeWitt may have been eating at the time that the recording was made.
“This is back east,” DeWitt explained in the audio. “…But they’re willing to put their money where their mouth is, in a big way. So, this conversation never happened.”
Lake interjected, “This is crazy, though. They should want me. I’m a great candidate. People love me. These people are corrupt.”
In the audio, DeWit asked Lake not to repeat the conversation on more than on occasion and noted that he’ll “get myself in trouble,” as he fumblingly noted that powerful people would like to see Lake get out of the U.S. Senate race.
“They’re going to try to have me murdered,” Lake joked dryly.
DeWit said to “forget the who” of who was asking her to exit politics. Lake pointed out that the powers-that-be, who remain unnamed in this audio, “don’t own me and it pisses me off” because they wanted to control her.
“It’s about being on the TEAM,” DeWit said. “…They want you to be on their team.”
Essentially, the unnamed powers were asking Lake to sit out of the Arizona Senate race for two years.
At one point, Lake observed, “This is about defeating Trump and I think that’s a bad, bad thing for our country.”
DeWit later perhaps unwittingly revealed the seedy bottom line of the establishment agenda: it was all about the money. He stated, “I think what it really comes down to for a lot of people, it’s not about like control or agenda. It’s about the ability to raise money to win.”
Lake fired back, “If they’re going to steal the election to make me and our movement go away, I’m not letting them do that…”
DeWit continued, “OR – you don’t go away, but you PAUSE.”
To her credit, Lake remained calm and measured throughout the conversation, replying softly, “This is the battle right now, Jeff…And we don’t have time just to pause on this battlefield…”
At the end of the audio recording, after DeWit hollowly claimed that he didn’t “scratch people’s backs,” she stated, “I’m running and I’m going to be the biggest pain in their f****** asses…and they’re going to have to f******* kill me to stop me.”
According to the DailyMail.com, this audio recording was made in March 2023. They have claimed that two sources reportedly confirmed DeWit’s identity in the audio file. The identity of Jeff DeWit has not been explicitly confirmed by any other sources at this time.