MyPillow guy Mike Lindell, an ally of former President Trump who has repeatedly pushed the Big Lie of a “stolen” election, told CNBC on Wednesday that his phone records have been subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee.
“I wasn’t there on January 6th and yes they did subpoena my phone records but we filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the January 6th committee and Verizon to completely invalidate this corrupt subpoena,” Lindell said in a text message to CNBC on Wednesday, a day before the anniversary of the deadly Capitol insurrection.
In a later phone interview with CNBC, Lindell claimed that he filed a legal complaint on Wednesday in federal court in Minneapolis. Lindell told CNBC that Verizon had notified him about the subpoena no more than 10 days ago and that the committee requested his phone records from November through early January.
Lindell’s legal action against the release of his phone records to the committee follows similar efforts by other Trump allies. Former Trump national security adviser Mike Flynn sued the committee last month over its subpoena for his phone records that compelled him to testify and to produce documents — but lost his lawsuit a day after he filed his motion in federal court in Florida. Earlier Wednesday, conservative pundit and former Trump White House adviser Sebastian Gorka sued the committee in an effort to block the panel from obtaining his phone records from Verizon.
Last month, CNBC reported that Lindell spent $25 million since the 2020 presidential election to push the Big Lie — and that he will continue to do so in the months leading up to the midterm elections this November.
Lindell said that the $25 million he spent thus far went toward lawyers, cyber investigators and his “cyber symposium” election fraud event last year. According to CNBC, Lindell estimated that $500,000 of the total went toward lawyers representing him in lawsuits related to his bogus claims of election fraud, which include the $1.3 billion suit by voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems and a $1.6 billion countersuit brought by MyPillow against Dominion.
Additionally, Lindell told CNBC that some of the money was being used to assist the hiring of lawyers for local Republican officials who are also pushing the Big Lie, such as Tina Peters, a Republican county clerk in Colorado.
Lindell also has ties with a network of organizations boosting election fraud falsehoods, which include the U.S. Election Integrity Plan, as well as organizers behind the deadly Capitol insurrection.
Despite paying $100,000 for a sponsorship ad on the bus for Women for American First — a pro-Trump nonprofit group that helped plan the “Stop the Steal” rally that occurred hours before the mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol — Lindell has denied having any role in the insurrection.
Days after the Capitol insurrection, Lindell was pictured departing the White House with papers he carried that partially read “martial law if necessary.”
