MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who has repeatedly argued the 2020 election was won through election fraud, has been ordered by a panel of arbitrators to pay $5 million to the winner of a “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge.”
The contest was announced by Lindell LLC in 2021. Lindell claimed he possessed a great deal of data that showed China had interfered with the November 2020 election in several states. He was frustrated he was not being taken seriously and so decided to hold a “Cyber Symposium” to provide the data to prove China’s interference. Lindell invited journalists, politicians and cybersecurity experts to attend. As part of the symposium, Lindell LLC announced the “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge” for anyone who could find proof this cyber data was not valid data from the November election. The winner was promised $5 million.
Lindell said during a deposition reviewed by CNN that he thought the contest would get him more attention: “I thought, well what if I put up a $5 million challenge out there, then it would get news, which it did.”
Robert Zeidman, a 63-year-old Trump voter who has decades in software development experience, was the only one who entered the contest, signing a contract agreeing to the rules. When he concluded that the data did not prove voter fraud and had no connection to the 2020 election, he wrote a 15-page report and submitted it to the judges. Lindell’s firm said the report was not up to snuff and refused to pay. Zeidman therefore turned to arbitration.
“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,” wrote the arbitration panel in its decision. “The focus of the decision is on the 11 files provided to Mr. Zeidman in the context of the Contest rules.”
The panel reviewed each file and sided with Zeidman’s analysis.
“Based on the foregoing analysis, Mr. Zeidman performed under the contract,” the arbitrators wrote. “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 arbitrators directed Lindell’s firm to pay Zeidman in 30 days.
In an interview with CNN, Lindell said the decision of the arbitration panel “will end up in court.” He also slammed the media and argued once again that electronic voting machines should be jettisoned.
It’s unclear if Zeidman will ever be able to collect his payout. Lindell recently told Steve Bannon that his company took out nearly $10 million in loans as he battles defamation suits related to his false election claims, according to CNN.
“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,” said Brian Glasser, Zeidman’s attorney, in a statement. “Lindell’s claim to have 2020 election data has been definitively disproved.”
Zeidman himself also celebrated the decision.
“I am obviously really happy about the arbitrators’ decision. They clearly saw this as I did — that the data we were given at the symposium was not at all what Mr. Lindell said it was. The truth is finally out there,” Zeidman said.
Reasoned Decision and Final… by 100PercentFedUp
The backstory: Mike Lindell was duped by Dennis Montgomery
Josh Merritt, a former member of Lindell’s “red team” at the South Dakota event, told Salon that the $3 million was split among a group of Lindell’s “cyber experts.” Most of the money, he said, went toward the purchase of a luxury Florida home for Dennis Montgomery, a discredited former government contractor with a checkered history who has become central to Lindell’s operation.
Merritt said that in the “red team room” he heard Lindell and an employee discuss “that being the house that Dennis Montgomery lived in. Lindell had stated many times he had paid Montgomery and others over $3 million, and he had spent a total of over $15 million” on his claims of election fraud.
Serial Con Artist: Dennis Montgomery’s History of Deception:
Montgomery rose to prominence with his Reno-based software company, eTreppid, which landed over $20 million in federal contracts post-9/11. He claimed his software could detect al Qaeda plots and identify terrorists, but the CIA eventually determined the software was fake and ended its association with him.
Montgomery’s former co-workers were telling the FBI agents that he had often changed his software’s test results prior to presentations for government officials.
A fallout with eTreppid co-founder Warren Trepp led to vicious litigation. Montgomery’s former attorney Michael Flynn called him a “con man.”
Montgomery’s notoriety spiked during the 2006 Nevada gubernatorial campaign when he accused then-candidate Jim Gibbons of accepting bribes in exchange for securing government contracts. Gibbons was later cleared of wrongdoing.
Montgomery faced a six-count felony indictment in 2010 in Las Vegas for bad checks and obtaining money under false pretenses. The case remains pending more than a decade after the indictment. He also declared bankruptcy after accumulating $1.8 million in gambling debts.
Montgomery became a well-paid informant for Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, claiming to have software that could prove a federal judge in Arpaio’s racial profiling case was colluding with the prosecution. Montgomery separated from Arpaio after his software hustle was exposed, but not before collecting $124,000 from the department’s snitch fund.
