PHOENIX – Divorce files for Arizona Democratic Senate candidate Ruben Gallego and his ex-wife, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, were made public Thursday after an Arizona court released most of the seven-year-old file.
The data offers little insight into the high-profile marriage or the reasons it fell apart. There are no allegations of abuse or disloyalty that could have rocked Arizona’s closely watched Senate race, one of a handful that will determine control of Congress’ upper chamber.
The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site, filed a petition to release the data, which Ruben and Kate Gallego both opposed, saying they wanted to protect their child’s safety and privacy. They were unsealed a day after the Arizona Supreme Court denied the Gallegos’ request for an emergency injunction to keep them private.
GOP nominee Kari Lake has hyped the release of the records as part of a broader attack on Ruben Gallego’s character, suggesting in interviews and social media posts that they would be a “big story” and that the Gallegos’ struggle to keep the record sealed showed they had something big to hide.
“I hope that anyone who says they are going to vote for him will wait until we get the details about why he walked out on his wife when she was nine months pregnant,” she said this week on KTAR-FM, adding: “We know not whether it was spousal abuse.”
The divorce decree, signed by both Gallegos, includes a statement that “the parties acknowledge and agree that there has been no domestic violence or significant domestic violence during the marriage.”
In a joint statement Thursday, the Gallegos accused Lake of hyping the divorce and said they have always prioritized the interests of their son, who is now seven.
“We demand an apology from Kari Lake for lying about our family and the circumstances of our divorce,” the statement said. “She will stop at nothing to score a cheap political point – even if it means jeopardizing the privacy and well-being of our young son.”
Lake’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The divorce filing details the shared parenting and custody plan for their son, who was born while the divorce case was pending, and how the couple’s assets would be divided, but most of those details have been redacted from the publicly released documents.
The case was concluded four months after it was filed without any indication of a dispute over assets or custody.
Yavapai County Judge John Napper, who ordered the case unsealed, predicted after reviewing the file that “everyone will be pretty deflated.” He called it “one of the most diverse divorce cases I have ever seen.”
The breakdown of the Gallego marriage, shortly before the birth of their first child, shocked the Arizona political community when it was announced in 2016. Speculation about the reasons and secrecy surrounding the divorce decrees was one of the biggest challenges Ruben Gallego faced in his career. Senate campaign.
Both Gallegos have called their divorce a “private matter” and have said little about it publicly, although Ruben, a retired US Marine, has suggested that the post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered from a deployment to Iraq contributed.
Kate Gallego supported her ex-husband’s Senate campaign last year, and they routinely appear in public together, often with their son.
