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MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is for certain the 2020 election was stolen. He’s so sure, in reality, that in 2021 he issued a problem to his critics: Show my knowledge fallacious and win $5 million. The theatrics behind his problem have been pure Lindell — however on Thursday, a three-member arbitration panel agreed that his “show Mike fallacious” problem was extra than simply advertising. It was a binding authorized contract.
Information from final 12 months point out Lindell is spending $1 million every month to maintain the lights on at his fledgling far-right social media platform, Frank Speech.
The discovering factors to a development that would seem self-defeating — exorbitant quantities of cash hemorrhaged right into a conspiracy principle that's repeatedly disproved and sometimes ridiculed. However in a outstanding present of MAGA loyalty, he isn’t simply soldiering on, he’s doubling down on the costly enterprise of election denial.
Lindell made his flashy $5 million provide at a “summit” he’d rapidly convened in South Dakota, the place he promised to current proof so convincing that the Supreme Courtroom would unanimously conform to oust President Joe Biden. For the event, Lindell shared a spreadsheet of knowledge he claimed confirmed Chinese language interference within the 2020 election. There’s only one drawback: His knowledge had nothing to do with the 2020 election in any respect.
“Virtually everybody there was pro-Trump, and everybody mentioned, ‘This knowledge is nonsense,’” mentioned Robert Zeidman, a software program engineer and self-described Trump Republican who took only some days to completely debunk Lindell’s junk knowledge. That was two years in the past. Now arbitrators agree: Zeidman was proper and Lindell was fallacious.
Lindell dismissed all the course of as illegitimate. “I don’t owe him any cash,” he advised CBS' "MoneyWatch" after the choice. “[Zeidman] didn’t show something … this has all been one large plan, a coordinated plan to cease me.” For somebody who has confronted as many humiliating authorized hurdles as Lindell, one would assume he’d be higher at taking an L.
However for a man who retains getting punched within the face by the American judicial system, he's nonetheless strident in his oft-debunked beliefs. A few of that chest-thumping is simply Trumpian efficiency for the media, but it surely appears there’s actual concern behind Lindell’s rush to attraction. As years of spending present, Lindell’s inexplicable confidence is draining his checking account at a staggering charge.
Information from final 12 months point out Lindell is spending $1 million every month to maintain the lights on at his fledgling far-right social media platform, Frank Speech. That’s not going so nicely. The positioning, which celebrated its second anniversary Thursday, is thought primarily for being the one social community with an built-in pillow buying perform. But, the platform is an afterthought in comparison with Trump’s Fact Social. Lindell, the most well-liked account on Frank, has solely 30,000 followers.
Lindell has additionally set his cash on fireplace by way of a yearslong sequence of election denial lawsuits. None of these featherweight makes an attempt survived probably the most primary judicial evaluate, principally as a result of his arguments have been incomprehensible. However he has mentioned these vainness filings nonetheless amounted to tens of tens of millions of dollars in private spending.
Lindell’s deep pockets and willingness to finance even probably the most out-there conspiracy theories has made him a folks hero in MAGA mythology.
Oh, yeah, and Dominion Voting Programs — of the $787.5 million Fox Information settlement fame — can be suing Lindell for defamation. Dominion’s argument is just like the one which cowed Fox Information Chairman Rupert Murdoch into settling the community’s personal defamation go well with, a reality which is probably going inflicting some indigestion across the Lindell household dinner desk.
Lindell’s deep pockets and willingness to finance even probably the most out-there conspiracy theories has made him a folks hero in MAGA mythology. The assured cheers of far-right trolls could also be energizing his ego, but it surely’s additionally hollowing out his checking account. However Trumpism by no means permits for retreat, solely doubling down. And Lindell is nothing if not a Trump purist. So he's caught — his doubtful lawsuits want defending, and that isn’t low cost.
Final month, he admitted to taking out an enormous $10 million mortgage to cowl his mounting monetary woes. For many People, that call could be a chance to interact in some long-overdue self-reflection. Not so for him, who has already vowed to fund as many appeals as essential to overturn the 2020 election and reinstall Trump within the White Home.
A request for remark was not returned by the point this column was revealed.
It seems Lindell nonetheless believes he’s simply weeks away from lastly proving that Biden and the Chinese language authorities labored collectively to oust Trump from the White Home. In case you might spot him a couple of bucks within the meantime, he’d seemingly actually recognize it.