Social media commenters are lambasting the FBI after MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said the agency served him with a search warrant and seized his phone while he was visiting a Hardee’s drive-through on Tuesday.
THE VIDEO
According to Lindell, an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump who believes there was significant fraud in the 2020 presidential election the FBI questioned him on his connection to Tina Peters, the former county clerk of Mesa, CO.
Peters has been indicted on charges of conspiring to download data from voting machines as part of an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
- Lindell provided conservative and mainstream news outlets with photos of the federal subpoena.
- The entrepreneur and political activist told CBS News the subpoena sought records on his phone related to Dominion Voting Systems.
- Dominion Voting Systems is one of the voting machine companies that has sued Lindell for defamation over his claims their businesses participated in election fraud.
“On Jan. 9th, I received evidence of a cyberattack orchestrated by China on the 2020 election,” Lindell said last year. “I took that one piece of evidence and I just went all in. This was something different, nobody had seen. This was something that came through the machines—the Dominion machines, the Smartmatic machines. This was a cyberattack.”
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
Conservatives were incensed by the news, accusing the FBI of carrying out a politically motivated hit job against a Trump ally.
- “We are now officially living in a Weaponized Police State, Rigged Elections, and all,” former President Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday night reacting to the seizure of Lindell’s phone.
- In an opinion essay published today by the Washington Times, conservative columnist Cheryl Chumley argued “the deep state” had “swung into high gear” in a bid to “take down as many MAGA-types as possible — the latest, of course, being Mike Lindell.”
THE MEMES
On social media, conservatives rallied to Lindell’s defense by unleashing a torrent of anti-FBI memes.
“Why the FBI raided Mike Lindell today.”
“Mike Lindell’s new pillow case line. It’s called The Sham.”
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THE KICKER
During a broadcast that aired on Lindell TV, the MyPillow CEO expressed disappointment that he’d not been arrested during his encounter with the FBI, saying he had troves of evidence related to the 2020 election he hoped his arrest might shine a light on.
Overall, Lindell appeared relatively unruffled by the whole experience.
- “I want to say this for the record: They were pretty nice guys,” he said about the FBI agents.
