MyPillow CEO and Trump ally Mike Lindell makes a lot of outrageous claims related to the 2020 election, but this one was serious.
On Tuesday, the millionaire businessman and prominent 2020 election denier said he had his phone seized by the FBI in Minnesota while driving through a fast-food pickup window, which the agency later confirmed.
Here’s everything you need to know about what happened.
The search
On Tuesday afternoon, federal agents surrounded Mr Lindell as he waited in the drive-in of a Hardee’s fast food restaurant in Mankato, Minnesota, he said on Tuesday. He was returning from a duck hunting trip in Iowa with a friend.
The FBI later confirmed that they served the MyPillow CEO a search warrant.
The Trump ally told the New York Times that agents presented him with a warrant, seized his cell phone and questioned him for about 15 minutes.
The investigation
Agents questioned Mr Lindell about his ties and potential financial connections to a Colorado woman named Tina Peters, the MyPillow CEO said. It is unclear whether he himself is a target of investigation.
Ms Peters, a clerk in Mesa County, was indicted on multiple state felony misdemeanour charges for her part in a scheme to download data from voting machines under her supervision after the 2020 presidential contest as a way to prove election conspiracy theories that the result was illegitimate. She has pleaded not guilty.
The FBI “asked if I gave her any money”, Mr Lindell told the Times.
Previously, the MyPillow CEO said he put as much as $200,000 towards Ms Peters’s legal defence effort, though he has since said he was mistaken.
Mr Lindell has denied any involvement in the alleged voting machine scheme in Colorado.
“I have no idea what went on then,” he told the Washington Post on Wednesday. “I have nothing to do with it.”
In 2021, Mr Lindell reportedly sent his plane to pick up Ms Peters and bring her to a conference he held in South Dakota around election conspiracies.
The MyPillow executive later paid for the Colorado woman’s lodging security, and lawyers after she became a target of investigations, Mr Lindell previously told the Post.
The FBI search also included a grand jury subpoena calling Mr Lindell to give testimony before a grand jury in Colorado in November, Mr Lindell said, displaying on his TV show on Tuesday copies of documents he said were served by federal agents.
The Independent has connected the FBI for comment.
The questioning also concerned Douglas Frank, an Ohio math teacher who claimed to have discovered secret algorithms that proved the 2020 election was rigged., Mr Lindell said.
Mr Frank, who has denied any wrongdoing surrounding the election, has travelled around the country expounding on his theories. The teacher reportedly met with Ms Peters in his office and claimed a voting machine software update would erase data needed to prove the election was stolen.
The reaction
Mr Lindell has painted the search as an illegimitate raid, meant to silence his critique of the US election system.
“Hey, Mike, why did they do this to you?” he said, referring to himself, in an interview on Steve Bannon’s TV show on Wednesday. “Could it be because I have all the evidence and because I want to get rid of voting machines and electronic computers in our elections? There’s a reason they’re doing this. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
His ally Donald Trump has also rallied to his defence.
“Breaking News: Mike Lindell, ‘THE Pillow Guy,’ was just raided by the FBI,” Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social network on Tuesday night. “We are now officially living in a Weaponized Police State, Rigged Elections, and all. Our Country is a laughing stock all over the World. The majesty of the United States is gone. Can’t let this happen. TAKE BACK AMERICA!”
What’s next?
Mr Lindell and Mr Trump will appear together at rally in Ohio on Saturday.
Even if the MyPillow CEO is not the target of the FBI operation, he’s not out of legal trouble just yet.
He is the target of multiple big-money defamation lawsuits from voting machine companies, claiming Mr Lindell damaged the companies with his debunked election conspiracies.
