Arizona gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs’ campaign headquarters burglarized

CNN

By Kyung Lah and Kate Sullivan, CNN

The campaign headquarters of Arizona‘s Democratic candidate for governor and current Secretary of State Katie Hobbs was broken into this week, a campaign official and law enforcement told CNN on Wednesday.

Phoenix police responded to a burglary report Tuesday afternoon and “learned that items were taken from the property sometime during the night,” the department said in a statement.

“This is still an active investigation with detectives checking all security cameras in attempts to identify and locate the subject involved,” the statement said. No suspects have been identified in the burglary.

A source within the Hobbs campaign told CNN that CCTV video shows the man they say broke into the campaign headquarters. The Hobbs campaign hasn’t been able to get a full inventory of what was taken, the source added.

Nicole DeMont, who manages Hobbs’ gubernatorial campaign, told CNN in a statement that “Secretary Hobbs and her staff have faced hundreds of death threats and threats of violence over the course of this campaign. Throughout this race, we have been clear that the safety of our staff and of the Secretary is our number one priority.”

“Let’s be clear: for nearly two years Kari Lake and her allies have been spreading dangerous misinformation and inciting threats against anyone they see fit,” DeMont continued. “The threats against Arizonans attempting to exercise their constitutional rights and their attacks on elected officials are the direct result of a concerted campaign of lies and intimidation.”

DeMont said that intimidation “won’t work,” and expressed thanks to the Phoenix Police Department for keeping Hobbs and her team safe.

Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake on Wednesday appeared to claim without evidence that Hobbs’ campaign was lying about her campaign headquarters being broken into this week and said the incident “sounds like a Jussie Smollett part two,” in reference to the actor who was convicted of making false reports to police that he was the victim of a hate crime in January 2019.

When asked by CNN if she had a response to DeMont’s claim that the incident was a “direct result of concerted campaign of lies and intimidation” by Lake and her allies, the Arizona GOP nominee shot back and said the statement was “absolutely absurd.”

“And are you guys buying that? Are you really buying that? Because this sounds like a Jussie Smollett part two,” Lake said before launching into a lengthy attack on the media.

“She’s trying to deflect from her own abysmal campaign and the fact that you know, nobody even knows where her campaign office is,” Lake said when asked again about the incident. “The person who broke in probably didn’t even realize it was a campaign office. It’s really sad. And the fact that you guys are running with this story, shame on you.”

The Arizona Republican said she was “saddened that Hobbs and her camp would try to pin this on us” and that it was “defamatory.”

This story has been updated with additional details.

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CNN’s Anna-Maja Rappard and Amanda Musa contributed to this report.