The United States Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps and Office of Military Commissions commenced its case against former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs on Monday, having indicted her on charges of treason, defrauding the United States, and conspiracy to commit murder.
The tribunal, which started at Guantanamo Bay, saw a fidgety and frosty Hobbs representing herself—she had informed JAG she would not accept “compromised” military counsel, and, as the military had frozen her financial assets, outside counsel refused to hear her case—sitting glumly at the defense table with handcuffs around shrunken wrists. She appeared gaunt and fragile, her eyes dusky from sleep deprivation or malnutrition. Fingers rapped on the desk rhythmically, as if to the beat of some song stuck in Hobbs’ depraved mind.
“Are you not listening? I asked if you understand the charges you face?” said Vice Admiral Darse E. Crandall.
He had repeated the question three times, but apparently lost in thought, Hobbs was either playing deaf or choosing to ignore the admiral’s sensible question.
She finally tilted her head and said to the admiral, “I don’t talk to dead men.”
“How it typically begins,” the admiral said, “with not so veiled threats.”
He got straight to the point. “Detainee Hobbs entered an election she knew she couldn’t win. She is universally hated in Arizona. While serving as secretary of state between 2019 and 2023, her office was rife with corruption, and to say she was detested and loathed would be an understatement. And when she decided to run for governor, even her campaign staff told her she didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of defeating Kari Lake, her opponent. Hobbs wasn’t about to be hobbled by a statistical disadvantage, so she did what any self-disrespecting Deep Stater would do: hatch a plan,” the admiral told the 3-officer panel JAG had picked to hear the evidence against Hobbs.
On or about August 22, 2022, the admiral explained, Hobbs conspired to have Kari Lake murdered so she could essentially run unopposed.
Admiral Crandall swore in JAG’s first witness, Rose Huerta, Hobbs’ campaign finance director, whom the military had apprehended on September 26, the day of Hobbs’ arrest. She had reportedly accepted a plea bargain to testify against her former employer. The admiral asked her if she recognized Hobbs as present in the courtroom.
“That is Katie Hobbs at the table,” Huerta said.
“Did you become aware, in August 2022, of a plan by the defendant to have Kari Lake assassinated?” asked Adm. Crandall flatly.
“I did,” Huerta replied.
“Please tell this commission how you became aware of it and any firsthand details you know of,” the admiral said.
“Katie, your defendant, was not very happy with how polling was going at the time. The campaign was holding polls and surveys almost daily, and she, Katie Hobbs, and every time she didn’t like the numbers, which was all the time, she got angrier and angrier at Kari Lake. The polls got worse, and the more she drank. So, I was with in her office with her one afternoon, and she told me she could win if she made Kari Lake disappear. At first I thought maybe she was joking, or it was the alcohol talking. But I saw in her eyes a very serious, determined look. Two days later, she tells me that I must withdraw $350,000 from campaign funds so she can take care of Lake,” Huerta testified.
“Did she use the words ‘murder’ and ‘assassinate’,” the admiral asked.
“No, sir. She said ‘accident’ and ‘disappear,”, Huerta answered.
“Did you ask the defendant why she wanted the 350K or you to withdraw it?” the admiral asked.
“I didn’t want to ask and I didn’t need to ask. But she was, as I said, drinking a good bit, and she told me it was to make Kari Lake disappear,” Huerta said.
“Did you withdraw the money as she instructed?” said Adm. Crandall.
Huerta nodded vigorously. “I did.”
“Is there any reason she couldn’t have withdrawn the money herself?” asked the admiral.
“She could have,” said Huerta.
“But then it would have been her name, not yours, attached to the transaction,” said Adm. Crandall.
“Yes, sir, that is correct,” Huerta sighed.
Hobbs interrupted from her seat: “This is absurd, fabricated. Rose Huerta is a self-serving bitch trying to save her own ass. There were no drunken rants about Kari Lake. No secret meetings discussing disappearing her. Every word you just heard was pure fantasy—a work of fiction. And if any money went missing, this is the first I’m hearing about it, and if so, she stole it for herself.”
“Restrain the defendant,” Adm. Crandall commanded, drawing the attention of two MPs who gagged Hobbs and shackled her already handcuffed wrists to the table. “We do not tolerate unruly outbursts here.”
He turned his attention back to the witness. “Ms. Huerta, surely you must have known that if her campaign finances were audited, you’d be answerable since you were her finance manager and approved the withdrawal.”
“Yes, sir. But she is very powerful. She was secretary of state and also had powerful friends. I knew it was not the right thing to do but I was also very afraid,” she said.
“Once you had the money, what did you do with it?” the admiral asked.
“I gave it to Katie Hobbs.”
“Where did you give it to detainee Hobbs?”
“In my car outside in the parking lot by the office,” Huerta said.
“Was that by her design—her instructions?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
The admiral faced the panel, saying, “Sure sounds like a clandestine rendezvous to me,” and showed them a screenshot of the withdrawal receipt. “Ms. Huerta may have feared Hobbs, but she was smart enough to set up an insurance policy for her survival.”
He played an audio recording on which Hobbs was heard saying, “You did good, Rose, really good. It’s all here, right? You weren’t tempted to keep a little for yourself, hoping I wouldn’t count it, were you?” to which Rose Huerta replied, “No, ma’am, the thought never crossed my mind.” Hobbs’ final comment: “In a few days, our Kari Lake problems will be solved.”
“Ms. Huerta, you recorded this in your car during the money exchange, correct?” Adm. Crandall asked.
“Yes, I did. I was nervous she’d find out.”
“Do you know who she gave it to?”
“I don’t. I didn’t want to know,” Huerta said.
“All these cloak-and-dagger theatrics aside, we know that Kari Lake is alive and well—wasn’t assassinated or disappeared. Ms. Huerta, did either the money or Lake get discussed afterward?” Adm. Crandall asked.
“Of course, sir. Maybe three days later, Katie told me she got cold feet after paying someone to make Kari Lake disappear. She said she called it off because she was afraid if Kari Lake vanished, she’d be the number one suspect, and she was very mad that the person she paid wouldn’t reimburse the $350,000. She told me she’d find a different way to beat Kari Lake, and that, sir, is all I know,” Huerta said.
The admiral excused the witness. “That detainee Hobbs chickened out doesn’t alter the fact that she conspired to murder a political opponent. Ms. Huerta’s testimony today proves it; the audio and money changing hands prove it. And since she didn’t care to go to jail for murder, she resorted to good old election fraud.”
He put the tribunal on recess until Wednesday morning, pending the arrival of another witness.