Kari Lake claimed tech companies are trying to "destroy America through censorship" during an appearance before an Arizona House of Representatives committee on Tuesday.
In November, Lake was narrowly defeated by Democrat Katie Hobbs in the Arizona gubernatorial election, though she has refused to concede defeat and insists the contest was rigged against her despite claims of malpractice being repeatedly rejected in court.
Republicans have made election integrity a major issue over the past couple of years with former President Donald Trump continuing to falsely claim he only lost to Joe Biden in November 2020 as a result of fraud. Conservatives have also accused major technology companies of bias, with a focus on claims Facebook and Twitter suppressed a story about Hunter Biden's laptop ahead of the vote.
Addressing the Arizona House Committee on Oversight, Accountability, and Big Tech, Lake commented: "Big Tech does not have the interests of the American people at heart. As a matter of fact, they're trying to destroy America through censorship. Google has a much bigger ability to decide who is running our country, running our states, running our cities, than we the people do."
She later said: "It's not comfortable to be in the middle of a fight to secure and reform elections but here I am. God's placed me here and I'm willing to take up this battle. I ask you join me and join the people of Arizona who have no faith in their elections because our elections are merely theatre, to make us think we're choosing our elected officials when in fact we're not."
The committee also heard from former Psychology Today editor Robert Epstein, who claimed Lake would have won the election in 2022 "if you took Google out of that picture."
He added: "Google is the biggest, most powerful mind control machine that's ever been invented."
Epstein has long maintained Google has a bias against conservative news sources, which he has claimed shifted between 2.6 million and 10 million votes to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election. Appearing before the House Judiciary Committee in December 2018, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company had investigated this claim but found the methodology faulty.
Newsweek reached out to Google and Kari Lake via email for comment.
In August, Lake filed a motion seeking to dismiss the defamation lawsuit against her from Maricopa County Superior Recorder Stephen Richer, claiming her challenge to the 2022 Arizona election outcome was "a matter of significant public concern."
Lake had branded Richer a "crook" and accused him of adding 300,000 fake ballots to the final total, though this claim was rejected by a county judge earlier this summer.
In response, Richer, a fellow Republican, launched a defamation lawsuit against Lake saying her allegations led to threats against him.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
James Bickerton is a Newsweek U.S. News reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is covering U.S. politics and world ... Read more
