Mike Lindell’s attempts to uncover and validate unsubstantiated claims of election fraud suffered a setback yesterday when Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya denied his effort to subpoena former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and career Justice Department lawyer Carlotta Wells. The decision is encapsulated in the ruling, accessible on Court Listener.
Lindell, popularly known as the “Lumpy Pillows” guy, has been embroiled in a $1.3 billion defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems. In his bid to legitimize claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged by a so-called “magical election-stealing super-algorithm,” Lindell pointed to information he reportedly received from Dennis Montgomery—a figure with a checkered past of promoting dubious technologies to the U.S. government.
Montgomery, through his software company eTreppid, had earlier convinced Lindell that he developed technology enabling the government to manipulate voting machines. Despite Montgomery’s notorious history of fraud, Lindell argued that this information justified his defamatory statements against Dominion. The judge, however, deemed the connection between Montgomery’s past claims and the 2020 election allegations as tenuous at best.
Judge Upadhyaya’s order, providing detailed reasoning for denying the subpoenas, emphasized that testimony from Negroponte and Wells would be irrelevant. Lindell’s failure to verify information concerning Montgomery’s alleged government work significantly weakens his defense. The judgment specifically noted that past protective orders and Montgomery’s unreliable testimonies cannot retroactively justify Lindell’s public statements about Dominion.
For more context on Lindell’s legal background and the documented order, readers can review the full article on Above the Law.
Adding to Lindell’s woes, another court recently compelled him to pay $5 million in a dispute related to false election data supplied by Montgomery, further illustrating the dubious nature of his source. As this litigation continues, legal professionals and corporate counsel will undoubtedly scrutinize the implications of misleading claims in high-stakes defamation cases.