The hilarious irony of the Mike Lindell FBI drama

Ahmed Baba, The Independent

If you haven’t watched the new Mike Lindell video, you should.

In a video that dropped last night on “Lindell TV,” the man otherwise known as the My Pillow Guy claimed the FBI executed a search warrant to seize his phone while he was in a Hardee’s fast food drive-thru. Yes, you read that right. Lindell recounted the story with some drama: “Cars pulled up in front of us, to the side of us and behind us and I said, ‘These are either bad guys or the FBI.’ Well, it turns out they were the FBI.”

Lindell said he doesn’t own a computer and runs five businesses all from his phone, which was interesting given it looked like he was shooting his video from some kind of webcam. He called the phone seizure “disgusting” and claimed the FBI is out to get him — but seemed to undercut his own narrative seconds later by saying the agents who took his phone were “pretty nice guys.”

Donald Trump responded to the warrant with outrage on Truth Social, calling America a “weaponised police state” and a “laughing stock.” Well, Trump has one thing right. Between Giuliani and Lindell, Trump’s allies are definitely giving Americans a lot to laugh about. Hardee’s responded to all this by simply tweeting: “Now that you know we exist... you should really try our pillowy biscuits.”

While Trump, Lindell, and their allies claim they’re the victims, the evidence clearly indicates they’re the perpetrators. This search was a legally authorized grand jury subpoena from a federal prosecutor in Colorado, according to a picture of the warrant posted by Lindell himself on social media. The Denver FBI field office confirmed to The Daily Beast that “the FBI was at that location executing a search warrant authorised by a federal judge.” The subpoena relates to an investigation into a scheme to break voting machines allegedly orchestrated by Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters. According to the warrant, the probe is looking into conduct “involving Tina Peters, Conan James Hayes, Belinda Knisley, Sandra Brown, Sherronna Bishop, Michael Lindell, and/or Douglas Frank, among other co-conspirators known and unknown to the government.” As you can see, Lindell is named as a co-conspirator.

In May 2021, Tina Peters and her associates allegedly executed a scheme that involved Conan James Hayes pretending to be a tech worker in order to copy Mesa County voting software. Hayes is a surfer and conspiracy theorist with ties to Mike Lindell. Douglas Frank reportedly “passed along the information” about the scheme to Lindell, who had been spreading election lies about Dominion Voting Machines.

By August 2021, the data that was stolen from those Dominion Voting Machines had clearly made its way around the election-denier ecosystem. QAnon influencer Ron Watkins posted screenshots of computer passwords, which were quickly traced to Tina Peters’s office. On August 10, while Tina Peters attended Mike Lindell’s “Cyber Symposium,” a search warrant was executed on Peters’ office.

At that same Mike Lindell event days later, Ron Watkins projected files from the Mesa County voting machines on a big screen — but cut the presentation short after advice from his lawyers. Watkins reportedly told the crowd that his lawyers wanted him to issue this statement: “I just learned that Conan James Hayes may have taken, without authorisation, the actual hard drives from the Mesa County — or the Mesa, Colorado, County Clerk — and he needs to produce those hard drives immediately and return them to the clerk.”

In November of last year, Sherronna Bishop’s home was later reportedly searched as part of this investigation. Bishop is an associate of Lindell and former campaign manager of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). The investigation is in full swing. Tina Peters is already facing seven state felony charges. CNN confirmed the FBI is also probing this breach, which now apparently includes Mike Lindell. The whole conspiracy is like Watergate if it happened in the movie Idiocracy.