According to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, the FBI seized his phone after confronting him in a Hardee’s drive-through. Daily Beast reporter Kelly Weill points out that it may be related to a probe of former Mesa County, Colorado, election clerk Tina Peters, who is referenced in a federal search warrant Lindell posted to social media:
The case appears to stem from a 2021 breach of voting machines in Mesa County, allegedly by the county’s clerk Tina Peters and her associates.
…
The search warrant requests data from Lindell’s phone, including any information it contains about damage to Dominion voting machines, information about [conspiracy theorist Conan] Hayes’ alleged impersonation of a tech worker, and the phone’s internet activity, geographical location, and information on whether it could be controlled remotely via “viruses, Trojan horses, and other forms of malicious software.”
Lindell hosted Peters at his “cyber symposium” in 2021, shortly after her alleged criminal conduct – Lindell may have even flown her there himself. (Peters has been indicted so far in Colorado on multiple felonies and misdemeanors, but not by the federal government; her story is long and strange – and also involves Steve Bannon.)
Lindell has told many people about the FBI seizing his phone; as the QAnon-linked election denier and coup proponent is perhaps the least reliable narrator in American politics today (and that is saying something), we would advise everyone to take this story with many grains of salt beyond the little hard evidence that is out there.
Lindell may also be the most visible person on Fox News, thanks to the ubiquitous MyPillow ads that feature him. In fact, since a brief pause in autumn 2021 when the network declined to run ads promoting the cyber symposium that Peters would appear at, they’ve run at a high that we at Media Matters have never seen:
Lindell’s MyPillow ads since 2017 have run across most, if not all, Fox programming, but per Media Matters' internal database, the ads are particularly prolific in the network’s prime-time shows as well as morning programming:
Program
Ads
Tucker Carlson Tonight
3437
Hannity
2070
The Ingraham Angle
2018
Fox & Friends
1454
America's Newsroom
1206
Fox & Friends First
1081
Fox hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham both bemoaned the apparent seizure of Lindell’s phone – with neither, of course, confirming any details beyond what Lindell said. A MyPillow ad with Lindell even aired shortly after Carlson’s segment.
