Kari Lake Attorney Bryan Blehm Is Suspended From Practicing Law for 60 Days

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The man who calls himself Arizona’s “most vocal and active pro-MAGA attorney” and represented election denier Kari Lake’s 2022 bid to contest her failed Arizona gubernatorial run is suspended from practicing law, an Arizona Supreme Court panel ruled Friday.

The panel said Bryan Blehm, who was sanctioned by the Arizona Supreme Court last year in connection with meritless claims he made in Lake’s case, is suspended from practicing law for 60 days, effective July 7.

At a disciplinary hearing held for Blehm in May, attorneys for the Arizona Bar recommended Blehm’s law license be suspended for six months and one day. But the panel on Friday concluded that punishment is “excessive” for a first offense that, while serious, involved “relatively isolated and easily detectable misstatements.”

The panel also said it would have been better equipped to make this determination had Blehm actually appeared for the hearing.

In an apparent act of defiance, Blehm declined to attend the hearing and instead posted a video on X (formerly known as Twitter) of himself sitting inside his vehicle with his dog. “I am by far the most vocal and active pro-MAGA attorney in the state of Arizona. Hands down,” he said, insinuating that the bar association is using its disciplinary efforts to try to prevent him from practicing law around the time of the November election. 

Blehm’s disciplinary issues began in 2023, when Gov. Katie Hobbs — the Democrat who prevailed over Lake — and Arizona’s secretary of state sought sanctions against Lake’s attorneys (including Blehm) for continuing to push erroneous allegations in a petition to the Arizona Supreme Court in March of 2023, including the allegation that 35,563 unaccounted for ballots were added to the total vote count in the 2022 race.

Lake’s attorneys repeatedly described this claim as an “undisputed fact.”

The Court of Appeals had earlier rejected the ballot argument when it affirmed the trial court’s decision confirming Hobb’s win, attorneys for the Arizona bar said in an amended disciplinary complaint filed against Blehm in March.

Blehm argued the difference between an estimated number of ballots expected and the actual number of ballots counted meant there were a number of ballots unaccounted for. The appeals court held that the difference between an “initial estimate and a final, precise figure” did not provide a basis to invalidate votes.

Lake’s petition sought a review of lower court rulings that virtually struck down Lake’s case. The high court declined to review nearly all of Lake’s claims. In a May 4, 2023 ruling granting sanctions against Lake’s attorneys, the court said the representation of the ballot claim as an undisputed fact is “unequivocally false.”

“Not only is that allegation strongly disputed by the other parties,” the decision said, “this Court concluded and expressly stated that the assertion was unsupported by the record.”

Lake’s counsel, including Blehm, was ordered to pay the clerk’s office $2,000. 

Blehm is among many “MAGA”-friendly attorneys who’ve faced professional discipline for their continued spread of election disinformation in courtrooms. Former Donald Trump attorney John Eastman, who was heavily involved in the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, was hit this year with multiple disciplinary actions and is named in two criminal indictments in Arizona and Georgia, respectively. In May, another former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis was suspended from practicing law in Colorado for three years.