Report: Kari Lake’s election lawyer is no longer allowed to practice in Arizona

A controversial lawyer who assisted pro-Trump Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake in her legal battle against her defeat in the 2022 gubernatorial election has been suspended from practicing law for two months by the state bar association, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reported.

Bryan Blehm, a Scottsdale-based attorney who normally specializes in divorce cases, first came under investigation last November. He represented Lake in several cases in which she claimed that Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ 17,000-vote victory was illegitimate. But all of those cases ultimately failed due to a lack of credible evidence.

In addition to the two-month suspension, Blehm must serve a one-year suspended sentence. Representatives of the Bar Association had asked the presiding disciplinary judge Margaret Downie for a six-month suspension.

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Blehm received complaints to the bar about false statements he made while representing Lake in court, including a claim that 35,000 ballots were illegally added to the counts in Maricopa County in the 2022 election. In his filings, he claimed this was an “undisputed fact.” Neither he nor Lake provided evidence of this, and the state Supreme Court found there was grounds to impose sanctions based on this false claim.

When Blehm faced a disciplinary hearing earlier this year, he attempted to avoid punishment by simply not showing up for the hearing.

The day before the hearing, he posted on social media: “The Arizona Bar wants to use my own words against me. They found me guilty without a trial and expect me to sit down and shut up. Bar associations used to support free speech… They don’t like that I refuse to kiss the ring. If they care about my dignity, they’ve knocked on the wrong door.” The day after the hearing, he followed up with a video of himself flipping the bird.

Lake is currently the leading Republican candidate in the primary for the Senate seat being vacated by independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Her likely Democratic opponent is Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Phoenix-area lawmaker and former Marine.