Kristina Karamo, Michigan’s Republican nominee for secretary of state, allegedly tried to crash a car with her husband and two children in it when he asked for a divorce, according to court documents obtained by Jezebel.
Karamo’s ex-husband, Adom Karamo, claimed that the candidate threatened to kill their daughters, now 13 and 14, in documents seeking parenting time with their daughters after the marriage ended, filed in Michigan family court in 2021. Adom described an alleged incident in which he was driving the whole family, and Karamo “attempted to wrestle control of the vehicle” from him and “crash it.” He claimed that she said, in the moment, “Fuck it, I’ll kill us all.”
Karamo, a Trump-endorsed 2020 election denier, is a conspiracy theorist who spoke at a QAnon conference in 2021, has called abortion “child sacrifice” and a “satanic practice,” and believes that demonic possession is real. She suggested a “citizenship arrest” of billionaire liberal donor George Soros in 2017. If she wins in November, she will be in charge of the swing state’s elections. She is running on a platform emphasizing election denial and the importance of investigating voter fraud that does not exist.
Karamo, her campaign, and the Michigan Republican Party did not respond to multiple requests for comment, though Karamo’s attorney said he would let her know Jezebel was pursuing this story. When reached for comment, Adom said via text, “I will not discuss anything with you.”
In the motion, Adom alleged Karamo threatened to kill the two girls and/or herself multiple times while the former couple experienced marital problems. He also claimed she was committed to a healthcare facility for a mental health evaluation:
To the contrary, it was Mother who had threatened to kill her daughters in response to Father asking for a divorce. Father was in fact trapped in the marriage for years, always subject to the threat of Mother committing suicide. Eventually, Mother was committed to an institution for evaluation due to her efforts at self-harm and suicide. Father was advised by family members not to disclose the fact that Mother had sought to kill her own daughters at the time, being assured that she was merely suffering from a nervous breakdown due to marital problems. Importantly, Father does not raise this issue to denigrate Mother, only to make the point that he has always been morally upstanding as it relates to his relationship with his daughters whereas Mother has literally sought to take their lives on previous occasions.
Adom said in the motion that he didn’t believe Karamo was in that state of mind any longer as the incident had occurred “several years ago,” and he believed their daughters “kept her sane.” He filed the motion seeking 75 nights of parental visitation yearly and claimed Karamo had rejected this request three months prior. He wrote that Karamo had had multiple years to adjust to their divorce and was now restricting his ability to talk to their daughters, but that he no longer feared for their daughters’ physical safety.
Karamo’s attorney filed her response on October 26, 2021, denying that the candidate threatened to kill herself or their daughters. (The filing noted that Adom left their daughters in her care for several years, which—if his claims were true—would call his judgment into question.) Karamo claimed in the filing that “no domestic violence has occurred and no evidence has been presented to the contrary.” Karamo also alleged Adom threatened to go public with his claims in July 2021, after she’d announced her candidacy, unless she agreed to his parenting time request. She submitted as evidence replies to her Twitter account from a pseudonymous account claiming to be her ex-husband that said she tried to kill the entire family, and screenshots of a July 2021 text message in which Adom wrote: “I take it you saw the tweet…before I go ahead with this [news] interview, I’m gonna try and reason with you.”
Adom also alleged publicly in July 2021 that Karamo tried to kill their children in a reply to Karamo’s Twitter account: “When I tell you this woman is despicable.. I mean it whole heartedly.. I’m her ex husband, I know her better than anyone.. she keeps blocking my accounts.. she tried to kill my kids while we were married and it was the worst mistake of my life to pity her. I’m paying for it now,” an account under his name tweeted.
The judge in the case considered both of these filings and apparently found Adom’s claims convincing because, in February 2022, Adom was granted around 60 nights of parenting time annually.
Karamo’s campaign website describes her as “an educator, mother of two, and proud Christian patriot.”