PHOENIX — Arizona Republican Party Chairman Jeff DeWit resigned Wednesday after he was heard in a leaked recording offering a job and asking U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake to name a price that would keep her out of politics.
DeWit’s departure shakes up the Republican Party in a battleground that will play a prominent role in the battle for control of the White House and the U.S. Senate in the November elections.
At the time of the recording last March, Lake was waging an unsuccessful lawsuit challenging her loss in the 2022 race for Arizona’s governor and preparing to run for the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, Republicans in Washington, bruised by a disappointing midterm election result, talked openly about plans to seek Republican Senate candidates who would be more viable in a general election.
“There are very powerful people who want to keep you out,” DeWit tells Lake in what he described as a “selectively edited” recording. “But they’re willing to put their money where their mouth is in a big way.”
He did not say who asked him to approach Lake, but said they were “back east.” He repeatedly asks her not to tell anyone about the conversation.
“Is there a number at which…” DeWit asks at one point, before Lake interjects, “I can be bought?”
In a statement announcing his resignation, DeWit said he planned to fight to keep his job until Lake’s team gave him an ultimatum to resign or they would release another, more damaging recording.
“I’m really not sure of the contents of it, but given our numerous open conversations in the past as friends, I decided not to take the risk,” DeWit said.
He said he had no intention of bribing Lake, but gave her candid advice to sit out the Senate race and run for governor again in 2028.
“Our relationship was based on friendship, and the conversation now under scrutiny was an open, unguarded exchange between friends in the living room of her home,” DeWit said. a friend.”
Lake, a former television news anchor, has a penchant for weaponizing recordings of her confrontations.
She routinely carries a small microphone during her public appearances, while her husband, a former news photographer, records her interactions with supporters, critics, the press and anyone else she encounters. Sometimes she posts videos of confrontational encounters on social media.
A Twitter account associated with Lake’s campaign published a video of her attorney speaking on loudspeaker with a Maricopa County attorney as Lake claimed the county stole the 2022 race for Arizona governor from her. Courts have repeatedly rejected her claims of fraud.
But even as Lake delivered campaign-style talking points to an audience not in the room, DeWit seemed oblivious to the fact he was being recorded.
The recording, first published by the Daily Mail, was leaked days before former President Donald Trump was scheduled to appear at a fundraiser for the Arizona Republican Party, which is in dire need of money, and the annual meeting of the party’s state committee.
Without naming her visitor, Lake has repeatedly described the meeting in her public appearances, using it to reinforce her image as an outsider.
DeWit went down in swinging fashion, blasting Lake’s “troubling tendency to exploit private interactions for personal gain,” which he said is concerning given the amount of time Lake spends with Trump.
“I wonder how effective a U.S. senator can be if you can’t trust him to have private and confidential conversations,” DeWit said.
DeWit served as Chief Operating Officer for Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns and as Chief Financial Officer at NASA during Trump’s presidency. He was seen as a trusted and experienced operative who could bridge the bitter divide between Trump loyalists and Arizona’s old guard Republicans, many of whom were brought into the party by the late Sen. John McCain.
Previously, he served as Arizona’s elected state treasurer.
Late Tuesday, Lake told reporters at Trump’s New Hampshire primary that DeWit should resign.
“We cannot have someone who is corrupt and compromised leading the Republican Party,” she said.