At least I hope so.
What’s going on here?From my perch, I see two Arizona politicians I wouldn’t trust to take out the trash setting each other’s career on fire. And, with any luck, both will burn to the ground.
The chairman of Arizona’s Republican Party, Jeff DeWit, resigned this week a day after The Daily Mail released a 10-minute recording of his conversation with Kari Lake, the recent losing GOP candidate for Arizona governor, seemingly offering her a bribe to drop her plans to run for the U.S. Senate in 2024.
The recording reveals Jeff DeWit, the state party chair, telling Lake that there are “very powerful people that want to keep you out” of the race. He says they told him to ask her if “there any companies out there or something that could just put her on the payroll and give her — to keep her out?” DeWit repeatedly urges Lake not to repeat what he is saying to anyone, and asks, “Is there a number at which — ” before Ms. Lake interrupts, saying “I can be bought?” “Not be bought,” he answers, just, you know, wait a few years before running. She sounds offended by the offer. “That’s immoral — I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror,” she says on the recording. DeWit persists: “I actually just wish you’d give me a counteroffer that’s big. Lake answers: “I can’t be bought.”
Holy cow, as Phil Rizzuto used to say.
Lake apparently leaked the tape. I don’t know why she would think this makes her look any better than DeWit, who was supposedly an ally and a close friend. Secretly taping a private conversation and leaking it to the media shows the ethical values of a blackmailer. Lake, who has already had a tempestuous career with more than one ethics controversy, should be sinking her prospects of any future elected office with this stunt. If she were a lawyer—her background is as a pretty-face broadcast journalist—Lake could be sanctioned for making such a recording even in a state like Arizona where it is legal. Lake is considered a long-shot possibility to be Trump’s VP, for she is one of his most vocal loyalists. For anyone other than an ethically-inert figure like the former President, an episode like this one would blow her off the list.
For his part, DeWit resigned with an epic and to me, at least, humorous letter that is at least as damning as the tape:
Heh.
“Selectively edited.” “Out of context.” DeWit doesn’t deny that he said what is heard on the tape, just that he “regrets” what he said. Then he defaults to the Marion Barry Defense: “Bitch set me up!” The best part for me is at the end, when he says he’s resigning because he doesn’t want a “new, more damaging” recording to be released. If he’s so wronged, why is he certain that there is a worse recording in Lake’s possession? The statement arouses curiosity regarding what could be so much worse than offering a political candidate a bribe to drop out of a race. It also undercuts his claim, in the same letter, that he is an innocent victim of Lake’s machinations.
A pox on both of them.
Be proud, Republicans!
Ethics Alarms 
Wherein a 30 year resident of Arizona and lifelong Republican is most likely to vote for a now independent Kyrsten Sinema, who holds few ideas that I agree with, but has shown integrity when it matters most.
God help us all….
I disagree, she did a legal thing, he did a potentially criminal thing. Not the bribe, the “Nice place you have here, terrible if something should happen to it”. She waited almost a year to release this, we have no idea if she interacted with a DA or LEOs before the release. What is the ethical course? Turn it over to the Law, like Hunter Biden’s laptop?
If she cared about integrity, she’d have released it back when.
If he cared about integrity, he’d never have done it.
Any number of ways to have handled it, both parties chose the wrong way.
Say what you will about the Democrats, they keep the eye on the prize and do so in lock step.
Lake still has me at “I love my country” and she couldn’t be bought. How many candidates would have said, “Let’s talk a little further about this.” She couldn’t be bought, and I respect her even more than I did before the release of this tape. She is sincere in her convictions and reasons for running for public office, I wish more people were running for their love of this country and not personal gain. What makes me sick and makes my blood run cold are these people behind the scenes with their fat wallets trying to buy or shape politics and the future of this country. I am sure they have always existed to an extent in both parties. These are the true vermin who need to be ferreted out and put in jail. People who can’t accept that they, like the rest of us, have ONE VOTE and that is the extent of their influence. As an average everyday American, money has corrupted our system, and it needs to be legislated out of the process. What can’t be legislated out needs to be punished in the most hurtful way to those trying to wield such unfair influence.
I dunno about her integrity, WAHJR. She knew she was recording him. Everything she said was couched in that light – she would have been an idiot if she had said, “well, who’s gonna pay me big bucks to go away?” when she knew the recorder was running.
jvb
Bingo.
In 2022, Lake struck me as one of the too extreme candidates that helped cost the GOP during that election cycle. She’s tempered the Stop the Steal rhetoric, I think (didn’t work so well in ’22), but listening to her address this issue on the Megyn Kelly show, she really doesn’t seem to have changed.
It is again a shame, as it struck me that that Senate seat was there for the taking, and it is very possible now that the Republicans won’t be there to take it.
I am guessing here it is the “leak” that is unethical; if she’s going to torpedo an ally, she should own it?
Otherwise, it would seem disclosing a bribe attempt is an important conflict of interest to disclose to voters. Someone offered her a lucrative job in exchange for a political favor. Even if she declined, the implied offer doesn’t vanish.
On the other hand, “everybody does it”. That doesn’t make a “bribe” ethical, but honest disclosure of every wheeling and dealing offer is an unworkable solution. Bribery breaks public trust, and needs to be rejected. Too much noise, however, let’s bribery sneak by. Politics is inherently messy, and a private conversation between close friends that strays too close or just over the line need not blow up careers.
I guess the second issue, based on other comments, is that she waited a year to underhandedly disclose, when the information is no longer relevant to voters. This makes it merely damaging, and discredits her because she had a whole year to reconsider the bribe attempt, rather than publicly own her rejection and be accountable to her promise.
I discredit her for making the recording in the first place. Legal or not, surreptitious recordings of private conversations are unfair, dishonest and manipulative. The recording party knows that what he or she says will be heard by others not in the conversation, the recorded party does not. In recordings like Lake’s, the target is being maneuvered into saying things that will be used against him. One can be justified by utilitarian principles, but there should be a rebuttable presumption that such conduct is wrongful.
I would add that it’s utilitarian to the other side, and it’s a stretch to say it’s utilitarian at all (but I’m sure I’m missing something in what you’re saying there…).
Instead of focusing on a message that wouldn’t be hard to convince reasonable people on, i.e. the Democrats are literally and obviously out of control, and that Republicans are the solution in that they’ll provide common sense leadership and policies that will provide security and economic growth, the message now seen by the middle whose vote is needed to win is that wow, Republicans are a bunch of snakes out to gain power and enrich themselves.
If they stab themselves in the back like that, they sure as hell don’t care about what happens to me and my family.
It’s a complete fiasco.
What are the implications of an employer complaining that an employee taped a conversation in which the employer who was also the local RNC Chairman was suggesting that the employee (Lake) not run for political office?
The employee/employer relationship creates that power dynamic that could be considered abusive. Had this employer been suggestive in other non-work matters such as social engagements and the like, would she be wrong in maintaining a contemporaneous record of the pressure made by the employer? If such a record would be appropriate, why would the methodology that provides irrefutable proof of her claims be unethical?
Interesting analysis of the power dynamic, Chris. I agree that most employer/employee relations, the employer has the upper hand.
I wonder, though, if that really applies here. Lake is a big player in Arizona politics and probably has a ton of sway with the Arizona RNC. The party chair, even as her employer, is probably on equal, if not lesser footing with Lake.
jvb