Mike Lindell speaks at the Save America Rally at Macomb Community College Center on October 1, 2022.Ryan Sun | rsun@mlive.com
KENT COUNTY, MI – A judge rejected MyPillow founder Mike Lindell’s demand for Kent County election records as a costly “fishing expedition” in Lindell’s effort to defend a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Phillip Green on Tuesday, Nov. 29, granted a motion by Kent County Clerk Lisa Posthumus Lyons to quash Lindell’s subpoena.
The judge said Lindell’s request was unduly burdensome and ordered Lindell to cover the county’s legal costs.
Related: Kent County clerk objects to MyPillow founder’s demand for 2020 election records
“It is eminently demonstrated that the breadth of the subpoena could not be greater,” Green said in an hour-long hearing at the federal courthouse in Grand Rapids.
Lindell, a strong backer of former President Donald Trump, is being sued in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for defamation after he alleged that Dominion rigged the 2020 election. He did not attend the Grand Rapids hearing.
He sought copies of electronic data storage from county voting machines and servers, including security keys and passwords and Dominion’s proprietary software, Lyons’ attorney, Madelaine Lane, said.
Complying with the subpoena could cost the county millions of dollars, she told the judge.
Lindell also served third-party subpoenas on the Michigan counties of Berrien, Calhoun, Saginaw and Wayne for their election records but only Kent County sought to have its subpoena quashed.
Lane said Lindell has “blanketed the country with subpoenas,” looking for a “scintilla of evidence, somewhere in the nation, to support the public statements he’s made.”
In court documents, she said: “He is asking this Court to sanction his mission to look under every bed in America, in hopes of finding some monster – even where all evidence tells us that monsters do not exist. Lindell has no evidence to support his conspiracy theories.”
She called Lindell an “election denier” who has no reason to believe Kent County has relevant information for defense of the Dominion lawsuit.
Lindell’s attorney, Alexandria Taylor, told the judge: “There is no other way to get the information my client is seeking, so this isn’t a fishing expedition.”
She said in court filings that Lindell issued subpoenas to 37 counties in the U.S. that used Dominion products.
“A central issue in the lawsuit is the truth or probability of statements by Mr. Lindell that Dominion electronic voting equipment changed votes during the 2020 presidential election. … To defend themselves, (MyPillow and Lindell) have the right to gather the information requested by the subpoena,” she wrote.
Green said that Lindell had not taken any steps to limit the burden to Kent County.
“Nothing was done,” he said. “I don’t want to beat a dead horse. … It does look like a fishing expedition. … A broad net has been thrown out in various counties across the country.”
The judge ordered the county’s attorney to file a report for costs within 14 days. Lindell then has 14 days to respond.
Dominion has opposed Lindell issuing third-party subpoenas for its “confidential and proprietary materials.”
The company said Lindell “made demonstrably false statements that Dominion stole the 2020 election.”
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