Outgoing Utah Senate President Stuart Adams has sent legal letters through a law firm demanding that four critics retract statements he calls defamatory, apologize, and correct the record within 14 days — or face lawsuits. The letters landed just weeks after the Layton Republican lost his June primary bid for reelection to challenger Stephanie Hollist, ending his tenure atop the Senate.
According to KSL News, Adams sent the letters to State Auditor Tina Cannon, God & Country Podcast hosts Uriah Kennedy and Ingrid Bettridge, and Elevate Strategies senior partner Gabi Finlayson. Adams told the outlet, “I want the lies to stop,” adding that the statements showed “reckless disregard for the truth” and were intended to damage his reputation and harm his family. He said false claims about him had circulated for months.
Adams has served as Utah Senate president since 2018. His defeat in the June 2026 GOP primary made him the first sitting Senate president to lose a reelection bid in 24 years, since Republican Steve Poulton's loss in 2002, according to Utah Political Watch. Hollist took the June primary with 43.13% of the vote, ahead of Adams' 34.06% and Braden Hess' 22.80%, per Davis County Clerk figures.
Podcast Appearance And Capitol Office Dispute At The Center
Per Adams' letter, Kennedy, Bettridge and Cannon are accused of making false claims about him during a June 28 episode of the God & Country Podcast — a show that, per a Facebook post from the Braden Hess campaign, served as a major platform for conservative critiques of Senate leadership during the primary cycle. Adams claims Cannon said he controls the Capitol Preservation Board, that he reprimanded several lawmakers, and that her office was not given information about its own relocation. He also claims she said he influenced a 2024 law change to help his granddaughter.
Cannon told KSL she refused to be bullied by Adams. The auditor's allegations trace back to a longer-running institutional dispute: Cannon filed a lawsuit in December 2025 against the Capitol Preservation Board, co-chaired by legislative leadership, alleging open-meetings violations when the board voted to move her office from the Capitol's second-floor rotunda to a lower level, according to the Standard-Examiner. The board later held a revote in an attempt to cure the alleged procedural defect. Adams, for his part, claims he promised junior senators offices in the main Capitol building if they supported his reelection as Senate president.
Granddaughter's Case And The 2024 Law Change
The dispute over the 2024 statutory offense law traces back to reporting that the change mitigated charge severity for high school students, which critics say benefited an 18-year-old relative of Adams in a plea agreement involving a 13-year-old. Adams' granddaughter was charged in connection with having sex with a 13-year-old while she was 18 and in high school. Adams maintains he was not the sponsor of the bill involved in the change.
Governor Spencer Cox defended Adams in August 2025 against calls for his resignation, saying Adams acted appropriately by avoiding public involvement or lobbying the executive branch on the bill, the Standard-Examiner reported at the time. Adams himself issued a formal Senate statement that August calling the public reporting “politically motivated, blatant lies” that distorted a forward-looking statute — a defense Hoodline covered in its earlier report on the controversy.
Finlayson Accused Over Data Center Comments
Adams also alleges Gabi Finlayson made defamatory statements claiming he committed campaign violations, that he influenced the 2024 bill to help his granddaughter, and that he kept plans for a Box Elder County data center from the public. Finlayson posted an Instagram video criticizing Adams on June 25, shortly before the primary. She told KSL she will continue exercising her First Amendment right to free speech and said she will not be silenced by intimidation, threats, or bullying.
Adams' attorney, Tanner Bean, said the Stratos project — the 40,000-acre hyperscale data center approved by the Military Installation Development Authority, which Adams chaired — was the subject of public press releases and meetings. Political commentators have cited public backlash against MIDA's approval of the project as a major driver of Adams' primary defeat, per Utah Political Watch.
What Comes Next For The Senate Seat And Any Lawsuits
The November general election ballot for Senate District 7 will feature Hollist as the Republican nominee alongside Democrat Garret Rushforth and Constitution Party candidate Jeffrey Ostler, according to Ballotpedia. Republican senators will choose Adams' replacement as Senate president after the November election.
Any defamation suits Adams files would face a high legal bar. The U.S. Supreme Court has set a demanding standard for public-official defamation claims, requiring proof of “actual malice” — that a person knew statements were false and acted recklessly. Utah also enacted the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act in May 2023, an anti-SLAPP statute that lets defendants facing meritless lawsuits over speech on public matters seek expedited dismissal within 60 days, stay proceedings, and awards attorney's fees to prevailing defendants, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. That law could shield Cannon, Kennedy, Bettridge, or Finlayson if Adams follows through on his threats.
