Right-wing RepublicanKari Lake accused her Democrat opponent of burgling her Arizona office dressed in a chicken suit during a bizarre press conference.
The pro-Trump former TV anchor unveiled a picture of someone in the chicken suit, which she claimed was Democrat candidate for governor Katie Hobbs, before later admitting it was a joke.
The stunt came as police in Phoenix arrested a 36-year-old man in connection with a break-in at the campaign headquarters of Ms Hobbs earlier this week.
Daniel Mota Dos Reis was booked into Maricopa County Jail on 27 October on one count of third-degree burglary following a break-in at Katie Hobbs’s campaign headquarters on Monday night. He was already in custody for an unrelated burglary.
“Now we had an incident this morning at about 6.45am. We have video ,we have actually photographic evidence of somebody rummaging through our campaign headquarters,” Ms Lake said at her Thursday press conference.
“And I believe it was Katie Hobbs and I’d like to show you that photographic evidence I hope you’ll cover this with the same vigour that you covered everything else.
“Now we’re laughing. No, this is a joke obviously, in case you didn’t figure it out. But what I’m trying to tell you is it’s a joke what you guys are doing in the news, and the world should know that you guys are not serious journalists when you cover this garbage. Shame on you. Shame on you for trying to change the election results.”
The Lake campaign has repeatedly branded Ms Hobbs a “chicken” for opting out of a debate after the Democrat said that taking the stage with the outspoken conspiracy theorist former TV anchor would be “pointless.”
The Hobbs campaign has said that it has “faced hundreds of death threats and threats of violence” ahead of November’s midterm election and accused their rival of “spreading dangerous misinformation.”
In turn, Ms Lake accused the Hobbs campaign of defaming her and claimed that her rival’s campaign was lying about the motivations behind the incident.
Ms Lake, who has backed Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and campaigned against “filthy masks” and questioned vaccines to fight Covid, then lectured the assembled media on integrity.
“You didn’t do your journalistic duty. It was malpractice of journalism like I’ve never seen before,” she told her former colleagues.
“And it was an effort I believe, to influence this election. Many of you are an arm of the Democrat Party. Many of you are propagandists. And almost all of you should be ashamed.”
Democratic activist Ron Filipkowski tweeted that Ms Lake’s performance had been “unhinged”.
