PHOENIX (AP) — Divorce records for Arizona Democratic Senate candidate Ruben Gallego and his ex-wife, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, were made public Thursday after an Arizona court unsealed most of the seven-year-old case file.
The records offer little insight into the high-profile marriage or the reasons it fell apart. There are no allegations of abuse or infidelity that could have upended Arizona's closely watched Senate race, one of a handful that will determine control of the upper chamber of Congress.
The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site, petitioned to release the records, 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 declined the Gallegos' request for an emergency order keeping 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 “massive story" and that the Gallegos' fight to keep the record sealed showed they had something big to hide.
“I hope everybody who says they're going to vote for him will hold off until we get the details about why he ran off on his wife when she was nine months pregnant," she said on KTAR-FM this week, adding, “We don't know if it was spousal abuse.”
The divorce decree, signed by both Gallegos, includes a declaration that “the parties acknowledge and agree that there was no domestic violence during the marriage or that significant domestic violence did not occur."
In a joint statement Thursday, the Gallegos blasted Lake for hyping the divorce and said they have always prioritized the interests of their son, who is now 7.
“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 endangering the privacy and well-being of our young son."
Caroline Wren, a senior adviser to Lake, said Lake had “nothing to do with this lawsuit."
“It’s bizarre that Ruben Gallego would demand an apology from Kari Lake for his appalling behavior,” Wren said, questioning how Gallego could spend millions of dollars on advertising claiming he wants to protect women after divorcing his pregnant wife.
“If Ruben Gallego will turn his back on his pregnant wife days before she gives birth, he will turn his back on the women of Arizona,” she added.
The divorce file spells out 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 were redacted from the publicly released records.
The case was finalized four months after it was filed without any indication of wrangling over assets or custody.
Yavapai County judge John Napper, who ordered the case unsealed, predicted after reviewing the file that “everyone’s going to be rather deflated.” He called it “one of the most garden variety divorce files I have ever seen.”
The breakup 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 the secrecy surrounding the divorce records has been one of the biggest challenges Ruben Gallego has confronted in his Senate campaign.
Both Gallegos have called their separation a “private matter" and have said little publicly about it, though Ruben Gallego, a retired U.S. Marine, has suggested post-traumatic stress disorder he got from a deployment to Iraq contributed.
Kate Gallego endorsed her ex-husband’s Senate campaign last year, and they routinely appear together in public, often with their son.
The Gallegos went to extraordinary lengths to keep the records private. Ruben Gallego filed the petition for divorce in Yavapai County, 100 miles from Phoenix and where neither has ever lived, and asked a judge to take the rare step of sealing the entire case file.
Napper, the judge now overseeing the case, ruled the case was improperly sealed and rejected many of the Gallegos' requested redactions.
The Arizona Court of Appeals sided with the Free Beacon last week and ordered the files unsealed on Thursday. The state Supreme Court declined to step in late Wednesday.
U.S. Senate candidate U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., speaks during a debate with Republican challenger Kari Lake, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024, in Phoenix. (Cheryl Evans/Arizona Republic via AP)
