Raw Story

Kari Lake, the probable Republican candidate this year for the U.S. Senate in Arizona, made more money last year just from speaking and writing than she would make as a senator, according to Raw Story’s analysis of her most recent financial disclosure.

That’s $175,000 for Lake — and $174,000 for a U.S. senator.

Lake disclosed the specific terms of her book deal royalty agreement in an amended personal financial disclosure report filed Friday. She reported receiving a $100,000 advance, against 25 percent of net profits from sales, from her book “Unafraid,” released last June.

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The Guardian described Lake’s book as a “grievance-packed audition in Lake’s tireless quest to be named [Donald] Trump’s running mate in 2024.”

The Daily Mail says Lake uses the book “to lay out her political manifesto and settle scores, all while describing how she made the move from much loved TV news anchor to one of the county's most divisive politicians.

Kari Lake's second amendment to her financial disclosure report for 2023 includes the terms of her book deal.

Lake’s book failed to reach the level of commercial success achieved by other MAGA-adjacent tomes, including those by members of the Trump family and a roster of Republican senators. The book is published by Winning Team Publishing, which was co-founded in 2021 by Donald Trump Jr.

Lake added the terms of her book deal — omitted in her amended February report and her original January report — as she prepares for Arizona’s July 30 primary.

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Lake lost her only general election — for Arizona governor in 2022. She never conceded to Democrat Katie Hobbs after losing the race by more than 17,000 votes. Lake continues to deny the legitimacy of the election, despite losing multiple times in court on the issue.

During 2023, she commanded at least $5,000 — and as much as $15,000 — for each of seven speaking engagements she disclosed between March and September. Only one of the speeches was delivered in Arizona.

Kari Lake's paid speaking appearances in 2023. (Source: U.S. Senate Office of Public Records)

The Washington Post reported recently that Trump, the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee, has soured on Lake’s prospects to win the Senate seat this year, despite writing a sunny foreword to her book. Trump has grumbled that Lake could be a drag on his presidential campaign in the key state of Arizona.

Lake’s campaign did not immediately respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

Lake faces Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in November. Through March, the latest federal campaign finance report, Gallego had a substantial lead over Lake in fundraising.

People wait in line to have their books signed by U.S. Senate candidate and former Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake prior to hearing former U.S. President Donald Trump deliver remarks at The Ted Hendricks Stadium at Henry Milander Park on November 8, 2023 in Hialeah, Fla. (Photo by Alon Skuy/Getty Images)

Gallego’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) announced in March that she would not seek reelection after leaving the Democratic Party. Polling showed her finishing third against Gallego and Lake in a three-way race that now will not happen because of Sinema’s departure.

A witness in Donald Trump's criminal trial Monday revealed that all personal checks from the ex-president's account were personally signed by him, reporters said.

This includes the "reimbursement" that he sent his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, after he allegedly paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about a sexual relationship with Trump.

This is according to the testimony from Deborah Tarasoff, the Trump Organization employee who processed the invoices submitted by Cohen for reimbursement. She then cut the checks and stapled them to the top of the invoices.

READ ALSO: Michael Cohen claims Trump took Stormy Daniels hush-money payment as a tax deduction

Tarasoff explained that any check that Trump didn't want to pay would have VOID written over the top in Sharpie. He did it often, and it wasn't unusual. However, the checks for Cohen were signed, she said.

Checks were sent to Trump in Washington via FedEx, Tarasoff continued. An email on Feb. 14, 2017, told her to pay and post the expenses that Cohen had submitted.

This testimony weakens Trump's lawyers' possible argument that he would sign anything that came across his desk.

Speaking to MSNBC, legal analysts Charles Coleman, Tristan Snell and Joyce Vance all agreed that the information the witness provided was harmful to Trump's defense.

"That's critical because what you can't do now if you're Donald Trump's defense attorneys is say that, look, his signature had to go on everything, so he became a rubber stamp for anything and everything in front of him," Coleman explained. "It's important to understand that now we're getting closer and closer to the actual legal legality."

Thus far, he said, the case has been about salacious things — the affair and Trump's comments on the "Access Hollywood" tape, for example.

Now, the trial is turning toward the documents that prove the case.

"Donald Trump can no longer say I was paying Michael Cohen for legal services," Coleman said. "You're paying out of your own personal account. That was a big part of it. It's going to come out as more documents are presented, as well as the why, to conceal another crime. That's also what the prosecution has been doing during the testimony of other witnesses and what it's been putting out."

Vance agreed.

"That's right, she can do that, and she does even more because the real issue in this case is proving what Donald Trump knew, and she has testified that the checks are stapled to invoices, and that's how it goes to Donald Trump for approval," Vance said. "And, you know, as Tristan and Charles were saying, Trump was not a rubber stamp; he was carefully scrutinizing these things."

See the comments from the legal analysts below:

'Not a rubber stamp': Prosecutors proved Trump knowingly signed Cohen's check personally www.youtube.com

It's not clear what longtime aide Hope Hicks might tell the jury in Donald Trump's hush money case, but a close friend made clear that she's not eager to testify against her former boss.

The former White House official could testify as early as Friday, and while she hasn't given details about what she'll say, several sources close to her made clear that she was frustrated and angry about being called to testify — and described the trial as a waste of time and money.

“This feels like something she’s being forced to do,” one former senior administration official who is close to her told the Washington Post. “She still has warm feelings toward the president and a lot of admiration for him.”

The 35-year-old Hicks, a former Trump Organization staffer who was one of his earliest campaign hires, was "in and out" of an August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower to discuss the National Enquirer's role in identifying and killing damaging stories, according to testimony from former publisher David Pecker.

The Post also contacted Hicks to discuss the newspaper's impending publication of the "Access Hollywood" story in October 2016, which revealed Trump on tape bragging about molesting women, and prosecutors have alleged that recording played a key role in the decision to pay hush money to porn actress Stormy Daniels — which eventually fell under prosecution.

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“She was there for everything, so they are going to ask her questions,” said Hogan Gidley, a friend of Hicks who served as Trump’s principal deputy press secretary. “I know Hope, I talk to Hope, and she wants nothing but the best for Donald Trump and his family.”

Hicks and Trump have not spoken since 2022, when she was called before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, although a former adviser said their relationship remained "cordial."

But the former president and his family were reportedly unhappy with her candor in that testimony.

"[Trump] said something along the lines of, you know, ‘Nobody will care about my legacy if I lose, so that won’t matter — the only thing that matters is winning,'" Hicks told congressional investigators under oath.

The Trump family, especially Ivanka, were especially unhappy with text messages Hicks sent after Jan. 6 that she shared with the committee.

“In one day he ended every future opportunity that doesn’t include speaking engagements at the local Proud Boys chapter," Hicks said in one of those messages.

MANHATTAN CRIMINAL COURT — Donald Trump's judge launched into Friday's hearing by fact-checking the former president's claim that a gag order was stopping him from taking the stand in his own defense.

Trump had made the complaints in front of TV cameras as he left the courtroom after proceedings closed in his hush money trial Thursday.

"I'm not allowed to testify because of the unconstitutional gag order," he said. "We're appealing the gag order and let's see what happens."

Trump was fined $9,000 earlier this week for violating the order, which forbids him from talking about potential witnesses, jurors, court staff or their families in the case, which has hit him with 34 charges of falsifying business records involving payments to adult movie actress Stormy Daniels to cover up a sexual relationship she allegedly had with him before the 2106 election.

Judge Juan Merchan started Friday's hearing by talking directly to Trump — and putting him right.

"There may be a misunderstanding how it impacts Trump's right to testify," the judge said. "I want to say the Mr. Trump, you have an absolute right to testify. The order restricting extrajudicial statements does not restrict you from testifying in any way. As the name of the order indicates, it only applies to extrajudicial statements."

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Trump has said he intends to take the stand in his own defense in the trial, though several experts have suggested that may not be wise.

The former president began the day in court smiling as he whispered to his lawyers, but he turned on a scowl when the cameras showed up before proceedings started.

Donald Trump's recent sit-down with Time Magazine for a wide-ranging interview under the title "If He Wins" provides clues that he has become increasingly "unfit" to hold office again, according to a professor from Arizona State University.

In his Substack column, author and scholar Steven Beschloss claimed every voter should be alarmed by the former president's answers, including suggestions that he is not averse to violence similar to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot if he fails to win re-election in 2024.

Posing the question over whether Trump is "unfit" to serve in the Oval Office again, he added the former president is now "dangerously unfit."

ALSO READ: A neuroscientist reveals how Trump and Biden's cognitive impairments are different

Writing that Trump told Time reporter Eric Cortellessa of his desire to "pardon January 6 insurrectionists, deploy the National Guard in American cities at will, give police immunity from prosecution, close the White House office responsible for pandemic preparedness, and permit red states to monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute abortion ban violators," Beschloss claimed Trump's replies should raise red flags about his mental state.

Noting a close reading of the Time transcript reveals, "a deeply untrustworthy man untethered from reality, swarming in lies, absorbed by grievance, unable to grapple with policy nuance and dependent on empty slogans to motivate himself," he added, "None of this is surprising, but when you read through the hours of interview material, you can see just how shallow his thinking is, how unreliable are his pronouncements and equivocations, how utterly ill-equipped he is to confront the complexities of our modern world — and, really, how crazy it is that serious people are forced to take this man seriously."

According to Beschloss, Trump seems to believe "his rejection of factual reality is a badge of honor."

With that in mind, he warned, "It will take more than divine intervention to ensure a man like this never sees the inside of the Oval Office again. It will take all of us — and tens of millions of others who decide that they will vote and do everything they can to ensure the survival of American democracy, the promise of America, basic human decency and the primacy of factual reality."

You can read more here.

Concurrent with Donald Trump's hush money trial finishing up its second week of prosecution testimony, the former president's emails to his supporters are becoming increasingly over-the-top and shrill, leading to speculation he is not only having donation problems but also the pressures of his legal problems are getting to him.

As noted by Salon's Chauncey DeVega who has been reporting on the former president's diminishing mental state and possible psychological problems, there is a growing vibe of panic in Trump's emails as evidenced by a recent one that blared: "All hell breaks loose in 24 hours!" and another declaring he is being held "hostage."

According to DeVega's report, the strident tone in the emails begging for donations are demonstrating an increasing spiral in victimhood as he sits day after day in a Manhattan courtroom while facing the possibility of jail time if convicted on just one of the 34 felony counts he is charged with related to paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

ALSO READ: A neuroscientist reveals how Trump and Biden's cognitive impairments are different

"With the beginning of Trump’s first criminal trial in New York, his emails have only become more extreme – and will only continue to – as the 2024 election and potentially three other criminal trials are closing in on him," he wrote before pointing to the recent Trump email that stated: "Friend, in 24 hours, the hearing on my GAG ORDER will begin. I COULD BE THROWN IN JAIL AT THAT VERY MOMENT! This is what the Hate-America Deep State has always dreamed of. STAND WITH TRUMP I won’t be able to campaign. I will be muzzled and silent. And Democrats will have free rein to destroy our country."

That led DeVega to argued that, "Of course, Donald Trump is lying. There is no substantive evidence to support his fabulist conspiratorial delusions-fantasies of persecution and other harm. The corrupt ex-president is in no way a victim, except perhaps of his own apparent sociopathy if not outright psychopathy, and other parts of his obviously diseased mind."

Add to that, he wrote that there is a sense that the former president is struggling to raise money to fund both his multitude of legal teams fending off criminal indictments as well as his presidential campaign.

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To make that point, he cited a recent Washington Post report that relayed, "In the years after Donald Trump lost the presidency to Joe Biden, Trump sent so many emails and text messages asking for money that Republican consultants warned his mailing lists could become useless. The former president’s friends told him that they were being asked for too much, too often, and Trump himself ordered aides at one point to slow the solicitations. Some of his fans, pockets emptied, mailed handwritten letters apologizing for not being able to give more. Now, as Trump and Biden prepare for a rematch, Trump’s vaunted small-dollar fundraising operation is not bringing in as much money as it once did."

"They will need to find a way to trigger more fear, pain, discomfort, terror, and other negative emotions among the MAGA people and other prospective Trump donors and voters. Those negative emotions will be the motivation for giving a literal form of protection money to Donald Trump and the MAGA leadership," the Salon columnist suggested.

You can read more here.