Mike Lindell has said things have been very hard recently financially, as the MyPillow CEO continues to fight his legal battles.
The MyPillow CEO is facing three defamation cases over his unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, from voting-machine manufacturers Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, and by Eric Coomer, a former Dominion employee. The claimants say Lindell's comments damaged their reputation. Lindell has denied wrongdoing.
Since then, Lindell has complained about the cost of these cases. Dominion, which previously launched a lawsuit against Fox News that was settled last year for $787 million, is seeking $1.3 billion from Lindell. Claims of electoral fraud have been repeatedly rejected in court and by independent election experts.
Newsweek has contacted Lindell by telephone to comment on this story.
Speaking to Donald Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump on her show The Right View, Lindell detailed the cost of these legal cases. "I've financed lawsuits, people on the ground, I put $50 to $60 million, every dime I had into this bucket," he said.
Lindell added that, since being sued, he has racked up expensive legal bills leading him to hire cheaper lawyers to save money. "I had to make a decision two months ago. Our lawyer bills at MyPillow were $2 million a month to fight these frivolous lawsuits and I said, 'This is ridiculous,'" Lindell said.
He added that his new lawyers cost one-10th of the price of his previous attorneys. "It's been very hard the last couple months, but we pray every day we get through it, and I'm never giving up," he said.
Lindell recently told Newsweek he hadn't been able to pay his legal team for the past couple of months. However, he also said MyPillow isn't going out of business.
He has been raising money to pay his legal bills via the "Lindell Offense Fund", which he also uses to pay for $500 wireless monitoring devices he says are designed to detect whether voting machines are connected to the internet. Their legitimacy has been disputed.
During a discussion on Lindell TV last month, he pleaded for donations, saying: "Anyone out there that's going to put money into candidates and so on, your first thing should be here," Lindell said. "Let's get on the same playing field. Let's level the field, right?"
Meanwhile, he has offered a range of sales on MyPillow products recently, including a Black Friday sale and an offer on free shipping.
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Kate Plummer is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on U.S. politics and national affairs, and ... Read more
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