Lindell defiant: MyPillow CEO unwilling to drop China election hack claim

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is doubling down on his claims that China hacked the 2020 election.

After falling short of making the case at his highly touted three-day “Cyber Symposium” in August, the Trump ally now says he is coordinating with multiple states attorneys general to present his evidence before the Supreme Court next month.

“They’re going to see this attack, this intrusion by China,” he said in an interview Wednesday.

“It’s over, they’ve got to do something,” he said, speaking of the Supreme Court Justices. “They’re there to protect our country. They’re nine people too, like you and I. … I don’t care what party they’re in, when they see this evidence, they’re going to do something about it.”

Mr. Lindell previously predicted that the Supreme Court would overturn the election based on 37 terabytes of “irrefutable” evidence he claims to have in his possession. The evidence, he says, proves that China-backed hackers broke into election systems and switched votes to President Biden. The proof, he says, is visible in intercepted network data or “packet captures.”

To date, Mr. Lindell has failed to show any evidence to back up his explosive claims despite spending millions on the effort. Even some of his closest allies are beginning to doubt his claims.

Over the summer, Mr. Lindell invited hundreds of state and local politicians, cybersecurity experts, and members of the media to a three-day event in South Dakota, during which attendees were promised an in-depth review of the proof. He offered $5 million to any person in attendance who could prove that the data he had on hand was not from the 2020 election.

The event quickly unraveled and Mr. Lindell’s team eventually conceded that they would not be able to provide proof of a China hack, saying the data had been infected with a “poison pill.”

Still, Mr. Lindell told The Washington Times that he remained undeterred and was confident he has the proof. He said he had it revalidated since the symposium by two independent analysts, including a “cyber expert” who represented a state official. Mr. Lindell refused to disclose their identities.

Moreover, Mr. Lindell said failing to prove China hacked the election was not his main intent of the symposium. He insisted it was about energizing state officials in attendance in their quest to overturn the election.

“Every one of those states went back, these people that were there, went back to their states, and they’re the ones that got the ground game organized,” Mr. Lindell said in the interview. “They’re out there doing audits, they’re doing canvassing, they went to their attorneys general or they went to their officials.”

“And they all reached out to me,” he said. “I have hardly had to go out at all and try to solicit an attorney general. I’ve gotten calls from all the states since the symposium.”

It is through these calls that Mr. Lindell hopes to galvanize support for a Supreme Court case. As of now, he said he has several state attorneys general at varying degrees of commitment, though would not say what states specifically. He said he hopes to have 20 named when the case is filed on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

In the case, they will show that states failed to provide a secure election, a violation of Article Four of the Constitution, which is grounds for the high court to void the election results, he said.

Mr. Lindell faces an extremely steep uphill battle.

Countless state audits and court cases have yet to produce evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.

The Supreme Court has already rejected several cases related to the 2020 election.

Former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon, one of Mr. Lindell’s closest allies, also shows signs of waning enthusiasm for Mr. Lindell’s claims. On a recent episode of Mr. Bannon’s “War Room Pandemic,” he asked Mr. Lindell to explain how his case was “anything more than a fantasy.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Lindell’s personal legal battles continue to rage.

In February, the voting machine company Dominion sued Mr. Lindell and MyPillow for $1.3 billion in damages for defamation based on his allegations that the election was rigged.

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. He is also backing a class action against Dominion alleging it violated the First Amendment rights of “ordinary Americans” by waging “lawsuit warfare” against those who speak out.

Still, he said he won’t back down until the election is overturned.

“People say to me, ‘Mike, are you ever going to stop trying to get out there? You’ve been attacked. You’ve lost everything,’” he said.

“I lose everything if I don’t, no matter what anyway. If this doesn’t change by 2022, we lose everything,” he said. “The whole world is watching.”