Kari Lake invents bullshit ‘gay lover’ rumor about Rep. Greg Stanton

It's a time-tested strategy, straight out of 1995: When someone calls you out for lying, falsely accuse that person of being gay.

That's the tack Kari Lake took while testifying in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Lake was there in her capacity as senior advisor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees independent news agencies like Voice of America that broadcast in press-hostile countries like Iran, Cuba and China. Lake once aspired to lead VOA, though she's now been tasked with dismantling it, drawing court challenges as a result.

For much of the hearing, Lake comported herself in a way familiar to anyone in Arizona who watched her repeatedly pump bullshit election conspiracy theories en route to losing back-to-back elections for governor and senator. She made shocking allegations about corruption she'd uncovered at USAGM. She provided little in the way of evidence. Like with many of her election claims — and her previous claims about USAGM and VOA — it would surprise no one if her testimony crumbled under the slightest bit of scrutiny.

That seemed to be on the mind of Arizona Rep. Greg Stanton when it was his turn to question Lake. A Democrat who served as the mayor of Phoenix while Lake was still working as a broadcast journalist on local news, Stanton used his time to tear into Lake's history of election denials.

"I’ve seen you in action, including your behavior in the last two elections," Stanton told her. "Let me be clear about something: The American people cannot believe a word you say."

Stanton went on to chronicle Lake's many pet conspiracy theories about her 2022 loss to Gov. Katie Hobbs — false claims about signature verification, and misprinted, mishandled and even fake ballots. As Stanton pointed out, Lake's claims have been litigated over and over in the courts, not once in Lake's favor. Indeed, Lake has continued to falsely claim she rightfully won the 2022 election, which she never conceded.

"You’re an adjudicated liar and a two-time loser," Stanton concluded, before ending with a crack: "Arizona has another election for governor next year… can you do us all a favor and run again?"

That last dig seemed to rankle Lake. She responded by turning the subject back to USAGM and "how they can put out absolute, abject lies and we have no say over what the editorial content is." Then, to underscore her point, she seemed to craft a gay-panic rumor about Stanton out of whole cloth.

"They could literally put out a lie about anybody here, and I know you’ve been the victim of that. I know you’ve been the victim," Lake continued. "I remember the stories about you where they said you had a gay lover.”

To be clear: Lake appears to have made those "stories" up. There seems to be no evidence of any old "stories" about Stanton's sexuality, nor did Lake specify who "they" were. Two longtime Arizona journalists, Brahm Resnik of 12 News and Garrett Archer of ABC 15, both said they'd never heard of any such rumors about Stanton.


Lake's remark drew an immediate objection from another lawmaker in the hearing, though it wasn't clear who it was. After a brief commotion, Lake continued, arguing that Stanton would not be able to pick up the phone to dispute such a rumor if VOA were to run such a story. That also appears to be false: While a "firewall" prevents U.S. officials from unduly influencing what USAGM outlets publish or broadcast, it does not prevent them from providing comment or disputing the facts of a story. Stanton could tell a VOA journalist that such a story is false, but he could not exert the power of his office to have it spiked.

Lake's spiel created a rich irony: Here was a proven liar concern-trolling about lies being broadcast over the air, only to use a nationally broadcast congressional hearing to spread a hyper-personal, unvetted and apparently invented rumor about a political opponent.

Indeed, raising questions about Stanton's sexuality and dog-whistling to homophobes may have been Lake's purpose. Several times during her comments, she carefully distanced herself from any conclusion that such stories about Stanton were false. Addressing Stanton, she referenced the supposed gay-lover stories as "what you said were lies" and "all those lies you said were said about you," putting some space between herself and the conclusion that they were false. Even when Republican Rep. Darrell Issa attempted to give her some cover for spreading sexual gossip, Lake again acted as if the rumors might be true.

“She was responding, and I thought rather complimentary that those were untrue and she was defending that," Issa said.

“That’s what he says," Lake responded.

Given a chance to chime back in at the end, Stanton did not address Lake's mud-slinging, instead making a final point about her track record of election falsehoods. Lake did not respond to questions from Phoenix New Times sent through USAGM. After this story was published, a spokesperson for Stanton replied to a request for comment with a link to a Stanton quote-tweet of this story.

"Happy Pride Month!" it read.

But Lake provided a good distillation of her relationship with the truth in her opening comments at the hearing. “We need to make sure that firewall is gone," she said, referencing the safeguards that prevent government officials from dictating what USAGM's independent news outlets cover. "We need to have control over what content goes out. It should be in alignment with our foreign policy.”

That's the opposite of how VOA and other agencies are supposed to work. They are meant to be free from political inference, both from the U.S. and in the countries where they operate. Forcing them to adopt the government line would entirely defeat their purpose. If Lake doesn't like what they're broadcasting, that might be a good sign — after all, she's frequently wrong. But she's not supposed to be able to meddle.

If she really wants to get her way, though, she can always pull out an old trick and publicly question someone's sexuality.