Trump Claims MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell 'Raised' by FBI After His Cell Phone Seized at Drive-Through Hardee
Top line
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell claimed the FBI confiscated his phone on Tuesday and served him a subpoena as part of an investigation into alleged voting machine violations in Colorado, prompting a swift rebuke on social media from former president Donald Trump who, like Lindell, continues to promote unsubstantiated and refute conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said the FBI confiscated his cell phone.
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Key facts
Lindell, who has previously sued for his unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, posted on social media that the FBI served him with a jury subpoena related to an investigation into alleged election interference in Colorado.
Lindell told several news outlets — including New York TimesCNN and The Animal Daily—The Bureau confiscated his cell phone while at Hardee’s restaurant in Minnesota Tuesday afternoon and questioned him about his relationship with Tina Peters, the Mesa County, Colorado, election official, who was indicted earlier this year for allegedly tampering with a voting machine.
Despite the subpoena asking him not to tell anyone about the investigation, Lindell published copies of the warrant and search warrant online and also read the excerpts aloud on his digital TV show.
The letter signed by the US assistant attorney states that although the law does not require disclosure of secrets, “we believe that the impact of any disclosure could be detrimental to the investigation.”
Lindell’s ties to federal officials sparked a swift reaction from Trump, who claimed his allies were “recently raided by the FBI” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Trump, who denounced the FBI for searching his Mar-A-Lago residence to recover classified documents, refuted the move and said it showed the US was now a “armed police state, rigged elections and all” and was a “laughing laughing stock” in the United States. the whole world.
What We Don’t Know
It is unclear whether Lindell herself is being investigated. Lindell previously said he had funded Peters’ legal defense directly, though later retracted that statement and said he was mistaken, according to the report. Time. Lindell also told Time he has provided as much as $200,000 to Peters’ legal defense fund through his own legal fund. Lindell also said agents asked him about images copied from voting machines that were uploaded to Frank Speech, the site he operates.
Key Background
Lindell, along with the likes of Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, has been one of Trump’s most prominent and vocal supporters in his bid to discredit the 2020 presidential election. He claims to have solid evidence that the election was stolen from Trump and widespread voter fraud, though the evidence has not managed to survive even basic scrutiny. He has been sued for unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud, notably by Dominion Voting System and Smartmatic for defamation, and says he has been dropped by major retailers in retaliation for his claims. His appearance in the case against Peters, who pleaded not guilty to charges of tactics to download data from voting machines, linked local investigations to a wider national movement to annul the election, in which Lindell was a prominent figure. The Peters case is one of several involving accusations of people accessing voting machines to try and secure data to prove the conspiracy theories are true.
Next Read
Mike Lindell: The FBI Seized My Phone at Hardee’s (Everyday Animals)
Confidant Fraudulent Voter—Indicted For Damaging Elections—Loss GOP Nomination for Secretary of State of Colorado (Forbes)
‘They Tried to Cancel Me’: MyPillow CEO Says Retailer Has Dropped Brands Amid Unsubstantiated Voter Fraud Claims (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/09/14/trump-claims-mypillow-ceo-mike-lindell-raided-by-fbi-after-his-cellphone-was-seized- at-a-hardees-drive-through/