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Late last month, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was busy working with staunch pro-Trump lawyers on a plan to sue House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. On Monday afternoon, the plan collapsed completely, says a “very disappointed” Lindell Rolling stones.
“The lawyers came back this afternoon and said after working on this and looking into it, I can’t sue (McCarthy) now,” he says. “They found too much (precedent) against doing that. . . . I had five different law firms looking at this, from every way and every direction, and I was pushing to get the case filed as quickly as possible. But ( (on Monday) I was told by my lawyers that we can’t do that – because that would just invite sanctions and not stand a chance in court.”
Lindell has argued that the Republican House speaker’s decision to give Fox News and Tucker Carlson tonight exclusive access to unreleased video of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — and refusing to do the same for Mike’s “Lindell TV” streaming program, for example — was “disgustingly” unconstitutional. McCarthy’s move not only upset Lindell; That quickly drew criticism from other MAGAworld drivers, including longtime Trump associates Rudy Giuliani and Eric Bolling.
But in a written message from the lawyers that Lindell shared with Rolling stonesthe lawyers tell him the news: “After researching the two issues that would be the basis of the challenge to the Speaker’s decision to grant Tucker Carlson exclusive access to the Capitol videotapes on January 6, we discovered a decision from April 2021, who denied reporters access to press briefings held by Wisconsin Governor Evers … To succeed on a discrimination claim, we would be confronted with a rational basis test that would allow the speaker to point to any plausible justification for treating Carlson differently from the rest of the the media and public … (Further) the Supreme Court has determined that the press and the public have no absolute right of access to government documents.”
The memo concludes by saying that Lindell’s counsel “wishes the research had given us a path to bring the case against the speaker, but the precedents are stacked against us.”
Lindell, a close ally of former President Donald Trump and one of the top bankrollers in the MAGA voter denial movement, typically isn’t shy about filing lawsuit after lawsuit against a variety of targets, even if success is an uphill battle. But it seems this one would simply be too far for even his incredibly MAGA-based legal team.
The Trumpist pillow mogul had previously said he and his lawyers were hard at work on a draft of the lawsuit with the goal of filing early this week. Lindell has repeatedly said he doesn’t trust Fox and has routinely blasted the network for not being extreme enough.
But on Monday, his plan for legal action against the Republican speaker of the House came to a screeching halt.
This week, Carlson’s primetime Fox show, a leading source of conspiracy theory-fueled revisionism, began rolling out its segments on the footage on January 6; Democratic lawmakers criticized McCarthy and Carlson for apparent efforts to exonerate Trump and rewrite the history of the Trump-instigated deadly Capitol attack.
“I’m very disappointed in our legal system and that there are precedents so we can’t do it this week. I’m still upset with McCarthy for only releasing it to Fox. More than one news outlet, not just Fox, deserves to see it all! … It’s just wrong,” Lindell adds. “I have January 6 prisoners reaching out to me. Maybe they and their lawyers could use what’s in there. They should have access too.”