Donald Trump supporter and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell sobbed to a judge that he is “in ruins” and cannot pay a court-ordered $50,000 fine.
Lindell has been ordered to pay voting software company Smartmatic the hefty fine over false claims he made about the company flipping the 2020 election for Joe Biden. It is one of a number of lawsuits Lindell faces over false election claims.
Now the troubled CEO claims that he doesn’t even have 5 cents left to pay the company the $56,396 he owes.
“I borrowed everything I can. Nobody will lend me any money anymore. I can't turn back time... but I will tell you, I don’t have any money,” Lindell, who was described as being “teary” by ABC News, said while appearing via Zoom Wednesday at the hearing in a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
“I’m in ruins,” he added. “I don’t have $5,000 or 5 cents,” Lindell told Judge Carl Nichols and asked for more time to pay the fine.
He claimed he has “nothing” except for two houses which are being liquidated, and a truck. The Maga loyalist was recently forced to lay off hundreds of MyPillow employees as a result of his financial hardship, the court heard.
Lindell also claimed he and his company owe more than $70m in back payments to the IRS.
Nicholas ruled that Lindell must prove the claims and gave him until Friday to provide documents.
“I have nothing to hide,” Lindell said.
Lindell is facing lawsuits in D.C. and Minnesota over his false election claims. Dominion Voting Systems is seeking $1.3bn in a defamation lawsuit against him.
Last month, Lindell was held in contempt of court for failing to hand over financial documents and other discovery material in the defamation lawsuit brought by Smartmatic.
“We haven’t held back anything. This is all corruption,” Lindell previously told The Independent. “They want me to stop talking about our election platforms. They’re not going to silence me. I will keep going until we get to paper ballots hand counted and melt these machines down and turn them into prison bars.”
