Election denialism has been expensive for Mike Lindell, who has used up $60 million in profits from his MyPillow company to fund claims of election fraud through events, legal battles, publications and websites such as FrankSpeech.com and electioncrimebureau.com.
His antics have hurt both his company and his net worth. Now lawyers defending him in one of the three defamation suits he faces want to quit because he owes them millions of dollars he doesn’t have.
He is being sued for more than $1 billion and has a $4.6 million IRS lien on one of his residences.
He is raising funds from the public, and told Politico he needs to use all available money to meet company payroll.
“I have lost everything I’ve had so far, you got it?” he said in one of many angry moments during one of three depositions. “I’ve lost millions of dollars.”
Lindell also “swore, called lawyers names, banged his fist on a table and repeatedly slammed down a pile of legal documents” during his testimony, reported the Minnesota Reformer. He also took phone calls while testifying and halted his testimony at one point to provide commentary to Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast.
The lawsuit is perhaps the biggest of the many problems now facing Lindell.
“I have lost everything I’ve had so far, you got it?”
Lindell, along with author and radio host Eric Metaxas, is one of a handful of well-known Christian influencers who used their platforms to promote Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud and now face lawsuits from companies like Dominion Voting Systems, which won a $787.5 million settlement with Fox News.
The story they peddled, that Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election but was denied because of widespread voter fraud, is patently false.
Lindell, Metaxas and others repeatedly claimed Dominion executive Eric Coomer was central to a plot to rig the 2020 election. They now face a legal accounting for their words along with 13 other people and entities Coomer has sued for defaming him.
Lindell also attacked Coomer’s lawyers, calling them traitors, criminals, slime, evil and “ambulance chasing assholes.”
Coomer has already reached settlements with Newsmax and One America News Network, two right-of-Fox cable networks. The Newsmax settlement stipulated that My Pillow could not promote its products on the network, which Lindell claimed cost him more than $2.5 million in lost sales over four months.
Lindell condemned Coomer during his deposition: “How dare he come and sue MyPillow? He’s a scumbag for doing that.”
The outbursts led Coomer to request sanctions against Lindell.
Lindell also attacked Coomer’s lawyers, calling them traitors, criminals, slime, evil and “ambulance chasing assholes.”
Christian media outlets CBN and Decision magazine have featured Lindell’s testimony of meeting Jesus, recovering from drug addiction, becoming a millionaire and using his wealth for godly purposes.
His efforts have been promoted by Focus on the Family and health and wealth preacher Andrew Wommack. Lindell also appeared on Metaxas’ Salem Podcast Network program from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort with a report on “the unraveling of shenanigans in the 2020 election.”
Lindell’s use of his MyPillow brand to promote his election denialism has hurt the brand. One by one, major retailers have dropped My Pillow products. Walmart did so in 2022, leading to significant losses for the company.
The Christian network CBN came to his defense with a story, “’Have No Fear’: Mike Lindell Vows to Keep Fighting Cancel Culture After Walmart Pulls My Pillow From Stores.”
“Stop the crucifixion of Mike Lindell,” cried former Trump administration official Peter Navarro in the Washington Times. “’Woke’ corporatists seek to bankrupt any business that does not conform to the left.”
The three defamation lawsuits also have limited his appearances on conservative outlets like Fox News and Salem Radio Network, where he once frequently appeared. Lindell hit back at Salem in 2021.
“They haven’t had me on for a long, long time,” said Lindell, who canceled advertising on Salem’s network.
In 2021, Lindell organized a “cyber symposium” in Sioux Falls, S.D., where he issued the “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge.” If anybody could debunk the data Lindell claimed showed fraud in the 2020 election, Lindell would pay the debunker $5 million.
A conservative Republican software engineer successfully debunked Lindell’s data, according to an arbitration panel, but Lindell refuses to pay. The man has sued.
“The data was so obviously fake that I spent a few hours before I could show it was fake,” the man told CNN.
Lindell has countersued. “This will end up in court,” he said.
This article originally appeared in Baptist News Global.
