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My Pillow CEO Michael Lindell is seen outside the West Wing door at the White House on Friday, Jan. 15, 2021 in Washington, DC.
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MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, an ally of former President Donald Trump, said his phone records were subpoenaed by a House committee investigating the source of the deadly unrest that occurred on Jan. 6.
The revelation came after CNBC reported last month that Lindell had spent $ 25 million since Election Day 2020 to push false statements of election fraud.
“I wasn’t there on Jan. 6 and yes they are subpoenaing my phone records but we filed a complaint for declaration and injunctive relief against the Jan. 6 committee and Verizon to completely dismiss- this corrupt subpoena is in effect, ”Lindell said in a text message to CNBC on Wednesday, the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Capitol attack.
Hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol as Congress tried to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. The then President Trump, who has repeatedly pushed false statements about the election being rigged against him, urged the majority to march toward Capitol Hill following a rally he named that day.
Lindell told CNBC in a phone interview later that he filed a legal complaint Wednesday in federal court in Minneapolis. He said he received notice from Verizon about the subpoena no more than 10 days ago and told him the committee wanted his phone records from November to early January.
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A representative for the House committee declined to comment. Verizon newspaper representatives did not return a request for comment.
Lindell is Trump’s latest ally trying to use the legal system to block the release of his phone records. Former Trump national security advisor Mike Flynn, who was previously pardoned by the then commander-in-chief after pleading guilty to federal charges, sued the committee after it subpoenaed his records. Former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka has also filed a lawsuit in a similar effort.
Trump himself continues to push publicly the baseless idea that there was some form of widespread fraud that moved the election towards Biden. On Jan. 6, Trump declared some of the same false claims about the election at the rally with his supporters in front of the White House. His supporters marched on the Capitol as Congress tried to prove Biden’s electoral college successes.
Many federal and state officials, including Trump’s former Attorney General William Barr, have said there is no such prevalent voter fraud.
Although Lindell continued to say he had nothing to do with what happened on Jan. 6, he said he was at various pro-Trump events in the days before the insurgency.
Many people claimed Lindell met at the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC on Jan. 5, along with other Trump allies, including former adviser Peter Navarro, attorney Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., To discuss election-related. matters.
Lindell told CNBC on Wednesday that he was never at that meeting. He said he stayed at the hotel before he went to a gathering in Virginia.
Daniel Beck, CEO of Idaho -based Txtwire, described the gathering in a Facebook post published a day before the riot.
“Fifteen of us spent the night with Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Tommy Tuberville, Michael J. Lindell, Peter Navarro, and Rudy Giuliani. We talked about elections, illegal votes, cases in court, status of republics, what to do expect on the hill tomorrow. TRUMP WILL RETAIN THE PRESIDENCY !!!, “the post reads.
Charles Herbster, a Republican candidate running to become Nebraska’s next governor, also placed Lindell in the same group on Jan. 5 at the Trump hotel.
Lindell is pictured leaving the White House a few days after the attack on the Capitol. The papers Lindell carried partially read “martial law if necessary.”
She was also involved in rallies organized by Women for American First, a pro-Trump nonprofit group that helped organize the rally that continued the unrest in the Capitol.
MyPillow paid $ 100,000 to the organization for a sponsorship ad on the group’s bus, which traveled to various pro-Trump rallies across the country from November 2020 to mid-December of that year. Pictures of the Women for America First bus show the MyPillow sign on the side of the vehicle. That group later organized what it called a “caravan” in Washington on January 5th.
The committee on Jan. 6 subpoenaed group leaders, including Cynthia Chafian, who submitted the first permit application on behalf of Women for America First, and Amy Kremer and Kylie Jane Kremer, who are considered the founders of group.
The bus tour was called the “March for Trump,” and it went to several places including Iowa, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC, in December. Many of the speakers at the stops made unconvincing statements about the election, such as “stealing” the vote and the election was an act of “infidelity.”
Lindell told the audience in December in Washington that he was in contact with Trump’s legal advisers, like Sidney Powell, after the election.
“I talked to Sidney Powell last night and he said, now it’s in the Supreme Court, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia and those are the real cases.” Lindell told the crowd.
Voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems sued Lindell for $ 1.3 billion last year, accusing him of driving false conspiracies about the 2020 election “because the lie sells pillows.” MyPillow later filed a $ 1.6 billion countersuit against Dominion.
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