Topline
After racking up millions of dollars in legal fees, the lawyers representing MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell are trying to drop him as a client, as Lindell and his company face defamation lawsuits over conspiracy theories about voting machine makers Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic.
Lindell acknowledged he doesn’t have the money to pay his lawyers.
Key Facts
Lawyers from Parker Daniels Kibort in Minnesota and Lewin and Lewin in Washington filed a motion Thursday notifying federal judges that Lindell and his company owe millions of dollars in legal fees.
Andrew Parker, one of Lindell’s attorneys, said his client stopped paying invoices on time this year and in recent months has only part of those invoices, according to court filings.
Parker Daniels Kibort went as far as to say that if they continued to represent Lindell and his company it could threaten “the ongoing business of the firm,” citing millions of dollars’ worth of additional discovery work.
Contra
Lindell told Forbes he had not paid his lawyers in a few months and didn’t blame them for retreating as “they have families and responsibilities.” Lindell called them “courageous lawyers” who knew they’d be attacked for taking his case. He said the lawyers approached him and said they couldn’t go on without getting paid. Lindell also reiterated that despite losing his lawyers he will “never” settle and will “fight until the end to secure these elections.”
What We Don’t Know
It’s unclear exactly how much money Lindell owes his lawyers. Lindell told Forbes it’s somewhere around $3 million to $4 million.
Key Background
Lindell became famous for his line of as-seen-on-TV pillows, but drew more attention in 2020 as a high-profile backer of former President Donald Trump’s false voter fraud claims following the 2020 election. Lindell is currently the subject of two separate defamation lawsuits over the conspiracy theories. The first is a $1.3 billion lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems in DC. That voting machine company says Lindell falsely accused the company of rigging the 2020 presidential election. In Minnesota, Smartmatic, a different voting technology company, is also suing Lindell for deceptive trade practices and defamation. Smartmatic said Lindell “intentionally stoked the fires of xenophobia and party-divide for the noble purpose of selling his pillows,” the company said in its lawsuit. Despite these lawsuits and Lindell’s apparent money problems, he has not backed down from spreading claims of widespread election fraud that have been almost universally dismissed by election security experts and election administrators.
Tangent
Dominion and Smartmatic sued a range of other Trump-friendly figures for defamation after the 2020 election, including Fox News and former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. Fox paid $787.5 million to settle a lawsuit from Dominion earlier this year.
Further Reading
Voting Company Smartmatic Sues MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell For Defamation (Forbes)
Dominion Voting Sues MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell For Defamation Over Election Conspiracy (Forbes)
