On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell must pay $5 million to the man who debunked his 2020 election claims.
After the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Lindell initiated the “Prove Mike Wrong” challenge. He announced a reward of $5 million for anyone who could prove that data he claimed showed Chinese election inference was wrong.
A digital forensics expert proved the pro-Trump businessman's claims were false but has yet to be paid his reward.
Mediaite reports:
Robert Zeidman, a computer forensics expert from Nevada (who voted for former President Donald Trump twice), heeded the call and did, indeed, prove Mike wrong. But when he submitted his findings to Lindell, he never got his reward, and Lindell Management denied his request to collect it.
That led to last spring's arbitration panel, which also decided that Lindell had to pay Zeidman the reward that he soundly earned. (That arbitration panel was actually in the fine print of the “Prove Mike Wrong” contest.) After that decision, Lindell vowed to take the case to court, which resulted in Wednesday's ruling.
In depositions related to the case, Lindell indicated that he never thought he would have to pay.
Lindell also claimed that he was “broke” after being “canceled” for spreading election lies. (Though he was also “canceled” by Fox News for being broke.) Lindell was one of many parties sued for defamation related to the 2020 election by Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic.
In 2022, the United States Supreme Court declined to intervene on Lindell's behalf in the $1.3 billion defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against the MyPillow CEO.
After Republicans were able to regain control of the House of Representatives, Lindell, also the owner of Lindell-TV, announced that his streaming service would file a lawsuit against then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy over his decision to give CCTV footage from the Jan. 6 riot to Tucker Carlson. At the time, Lindell told Steve Bannon that McCarthy's decision to exclusively share the 41,000 hours of footage with Carlson violated the First Amendment's freedom of the press provision and the Equal Protection Clause under the 14th Amendment.
Last July, MyPillow began auctioning off surplus equipment and subleasing manufacturing space after retailers cut ties due to Lindell's conspiracy theories.
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