AZ-SEN: Gallego demands apology from Lake after court unseals divorce records
For months, Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake has speculated that her opponent, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), had used the courts to hide “something really, really bad” in his divorce from Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego. But on Thursday, an Arizona court unsealed most of the case file — revealing what one judge called “one of the most garden-variety divorce files I have ever seen.”
The records were made public following a 10-month-long legal battle between the Gallegos and the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication that filed a lawsuit earlier this year to unseal them. The partially redacted documents show Gallego filed a petition to dissolve the marriage on Dec. 14, 2016 — shortly before the birth of their son — claiming that his marriage was “irretrievably broken.”
Lake and Gallego are locked in a heated race to replace Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I) — and one that could help determine the balance of power in the Senate in 2025. With polls showing Gallego leading, Lake and her allies have repeatedly sought to paint Gallego’s personal life in a negative context — running ads describing him as a “deadbeat dad” and alleging his divorce records contain a “massive story.”
In an interview with The Washington Post last year, Gallego attributed the divorce to his post-traumatic stress disorder from serving in the Iraq War. The documents, however, offer little insight into why the Gallegos’ marriage fell apart. Instead, the 465 pages that were unsealed Thursday by the Yavapai County Superior Court detail standard divorce proceedings, including the dividing of property and assets, as well as custody and child support arrangements. They also include no details of any illegal activity or infidelity and expressly state that no physical abuse had occurred.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/17/ruben-gallego-divorce-records-kari-lake-arizona/
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