Mike Lindell’s 2020 election symposium delayed by ‘hacked’ livestream

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said his website, Frank Speech, was hacked Tuesday morning, temporarily interrupting the livestream of his Cyber Symposium on how Chinese hackers defrauded the 2020 presidential election.

Mr. Lindell says he has 37 terabytes of “irrefutable” evidence that hackers, who he said were backed by China, broke into election systems and switched votes to support President Biden, which he plans to present at the event.

“We’ve been attacked, they attacked,” Mr. Lindell told the in-person attendees in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. “We have backup. We’re going to be up and running. But I’m going to wait to run that live[stream] to start because everyone’s gonna see everything we got.”

Mr. Lindell did not say who was responsible for the hack.

After the livestream was restored, Mr. Lindell launched into a tirade against the media, taking aim specifically at Fox News during the opening panel of his three-day symposium.

“Shame on you, Fox,” Mr. Lindell said to cheers from the crowd. “Disgusting that they haven’t talked about this election. At least we know where CNN and all these terrible outlets come from. At least they attacked, and then we can at least get the word out.”

Mr. Lindell had a high-profile dustup with Fox News last month, pulling ads valued at more than $1 million per week from the network, once one of MyPillow’s biggest promoters, after Fox refused to advertise the symposium.

Mr. Lindell’s comments Tuesday further galvanized the divide.

“I said the other day they should be a weather channel,” he said. “And the next day I changed my mind because they wouldn’t report an oncoming storm. It’s disgusting. What happened to reporting the news?”

He also berated other networks for not reporting his claims, or for producing what he called hit pieces. But Fox drew the most fire, specifically for declining to advertise the symposium.

“Shame on them,” he said. “But let me tell you, I didn’t put it on CNN and MSNBC because it’s all relevant how much you pay. They don’t have an audience. They’re losing that because we’re tired of their disinformation and their lies and what’s going on.”

Mr. Lindell said he would be monitoring coverage of the symposium in real-time and would address negative stories as soon as they are published.

“Every single story,” he said. “I’ve got five people, five companies just watching for some disinformation to come out there. So they’re going to drop in, and we’re going to go right to calling them out.”

Few media outlets escaped his fury during the remarks, except for Newsmax and One America News Network (OAN), which he praised. The two networks were sued Tuesday morning by voting machine manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems. Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com, also was sued by the voting machine manufacturer. Dominion said the defendants made defamatory statements about the company by claiming that its machines switched votes in favor of Mr. Biden during the election.

In February, Dominion sued Mr. Lindell and MyPillow for $1.3 billion in damages for defamation based on similar allegations. The complaint states that Mr. Lindell damaged Dominion’s reputation through his claims of compromised election integrity. In June, Mr. Lindell filed a $1.6 billion countersuit citing the First Amendment and claiming that Dominion had infringed on his right to free speech.

News of Dominion’s suit against Newsmax and OAN broke while Mr. Lindell was addressing the audience. An assistant interrupted his address and handed him a written index card with the information while he was on stage.

“Isn’t that something?” he said. “Why would they pick today? Why would they pick today? I mean, there’s suspicious things going on.”

Mr. Lindell also premiered a well-polished documentary called “Your Wake Up Call” in which retired Army Col. Phil Waldron lays out a case arguing that the election could be and was hacked by China through internet connection points with voting machines.

Several election officials told CNN last week that Mr. Lindell’s claims are baseless. A Wisconsin election official from a county where Mr. Lindell said votes were switched told CNN that the county conducted a hand recount of every ballot and that a paper trail backs up the results.

Mr. Lindell has not revealed the specific evidence he says he has about the Chinese hacking, but on Tuesday he alluded to a major reveal Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon.

The symposium marks a culmination of months of Mr. Lindell’s highly publicized claims of election fraud. His claims have widely been discredited and cost him significantly financially and in terms of reputation.

The full duration of the symposium is scheduled to be live-streamed on Mr. Lindell’s website, which he said he hoped would attract 1 billion viewers.

“It’ll be the most-seen event in history,” he told The Washington Times. “I believe that because everyone in the world is going to be curious and to see this. And they’re going to be talking going, ‘You got to see this. This is real. The United States was, their election was taken, hacked into by China.’”

Mr. Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in the general election. Federal officials in both administrations found no evidence of widespread fraud despite claims by Mr. Trump and several of his allies that the election had been stolen. Former Attorney General William P. Barr, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, also has contested the former president’s claims.