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After Fox News paid the largest defamation penalty in history, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has been ordered to pay $5 million of his own.
It goes back to when Lindell offered to pay $5 million to any cyber security expert who could debunk his claims that voting machines were rigged in the 2020 presidential election. Robert Zeidman, who has decades of experience in software development, did debunk his claims and demanded his $5 million, CNN reported.
“Based on the foregoing analysis, Mr. Zeidman performed under the contract,” the arbitration panel said. “He proved the data Lindell LLC provided, and represented reflected information from the November 2020 election, unequivocally did not reflect November 2020 election data. Failure to pay Mr. Zeidman the $5 million prized was a breach of the contract, entitling him to recover.”
The decision was celebrated by Zeidman’s attorney Brian Glasser, founder of Bailey & Glasser.
“The lawsuit and verdict mark another important moment in the ongoing proof that the 2020 election was legal and valid, and the role of cybersecurity in ensuring that integrity,” he said. “Lindell’s claim to have 2020 election data has been definitively disproved.”
Lindell hosted a “Cyber Symposium” in 2021 where he challenged experts to disprove his data.
“The symposium was to get the big audience and have all the media there and then they – the cyber guys – saying yes this data is from the 2020 election and you better look at how they intruded into our machines, our computers, and that was the whole purpose,” he said in his deposition obtained by CNN.
“I thought, well what if I put up a $5 million challenge out there, then it would get news, which it did,” he said. “So, then you got some attention.”
New: Mike Lindell offered $5m to anyone who could disprove his claim to have data showing China interfered in the 2020 election.
A Nevada man did just that. But Lindell refused to pay. Now an arbitration panel has ordered Lindell to hand over the $5m. https://t.co/Wz4RDrNNjL
— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) April 20, 2023
CNN reported: “Zeidman signed up for the challenge, agreed to its contractual terms, and discovered Lindell’s data to be largely nonsensical. While Lindell has made a variety of outlandish and unproven claims about the 2020 election, such as insisting foreign governments infiltrated voting machines, the arbitration panel made clear its judgment was solely focused on whether the data Lindell provided to experts was related to the 2020 election.”
“The Contest did not require participants to disprove election interference. Thus, the contestants’ task was to prove the data presented to them was not valid data from the November 2020 election,” the arbitration panel said.
“The Panel was not asked to decide whether China interfered in the 2020 election. Nor was the Panel asked to decide whether Lindell LLC possessed data that proved such interference, or even whether Lindell LLC had election data in its possession,” it said. “The focus of the decision is on the 11 files provided to Mr. Zeidman in the context of the Contest rules.”
But getting paid could be a challenge for Zeidman as Lindell has said his company has had to take $10 million in loans to stay in business.
He said that he borrowed “about 4 million in May, 2 million in the summer, and 4 million in September (of 2022),” in an exclusive interview with Insider.
He said that he has spent “all” of his money on fighting for the nation against what he believes are wrongs that have been done and it has affected his personal finances too.
“I sold a building I had in Savage, in Minnesota, in October,” he said. “And I had to borrow 2 million too. I’ve spent it all on fighting for this country.”
And he said he will “get around to” selling other things like his private jet.
In an interview with Newsweek, he said it “sure seems suspicious” that he was audited by the Internal Revenue Service.
“I mean, I’ve never been audited before in my life,” he said. “This is just kind of weird. You know, auditing Mike Lindell. So, it sure seems suspicious.”
“I just think that it’s very suspicious,” the CEO said. “I get attacked from every direction. The FBI took my phone. I’ve never done anything wrong.”
“They still have it,” he said. “I sued them and the government. It’s just one thing after another.”
He said that he believes the government wants to know how much money he has so they can take it.
“Where does the attack end?” Lindell said. “It kind of seems suspicious: ‘Well, let’s audit him, see how much money he has left and we’ll take that too.”
“I’ve had to borrow $10 million this last year, MyPillow has,” he added. “I had to borrow $10 million to fight these lawsuits and fight everything against it.”
