Update video, 31 January 2024
EXCLUSIVE Audio recording reveals the moment that senior Republican figure tried to bribe Kari Lake not to run for Senate
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An audio recording obtained by DailyMail.com reveals the extraordinary moment when what appears to be Arizona's top Republican official tried to bribe populist firebrand Kari Lake not to run in the state's Senate race.
Jeff DeWit, 51, chair of the Arizona Republican Party, can be heard asking Lake, a close ally of Donald Trump, to name her price to stay out of politics for two years.
'There are very powerful people who want to keep you out,' he tells her in a conversation recorded at the start of March last year.
DeWit tells Lake, 54, one of the most public faces of the former president's MAGA movement and a woman frequently spoken of as a 2024 vice-presidential pick, that he thinks Trump will lose and it is time to make way for someone else.
After asking her not to mention the conversation to anyone, he makes his first offer.
'So the ask I got today from back east was: "Is there any companies out there or something that could just put her on the payroll to keep her out?’
Lake reacts with indignation.
'This is about defeating Trump and I think that's a bad, bad thing for our country,' she said.
Later, DeWit, who was chief operating officer on the Trump's 2020 campaign frames it differently.
'Just say, is there a number at which....' he begins.
Lake cut in: 'I can be bought? That's what it's about.'
'You can take a pause for a couple of years. You can go right back to what you're doing.'
Lake repeatedly rebuffs him and says she wouldn't do it for a billion dollars.
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