Mike Lindell

From Wikimerica, the United States encyclopedia 
 	 	 	
 	 	 	
Official Portrait, 2025 	 	 	
56th President of the United States 	56th President of the United States 	56th President of the United States 	56th President of the United States
In office 	 	 	
January 20, 2025 - January 27, 2025 	 	 	
Vice President: Kari Lake 	 	 	
Preceded by: Bernie Sanders 	 	 	
Succeeded by: Kari Lake 	 	 	
28th United States National Security Advisor	28th United States National Security Advisor	28th United States National Security Advisor	28th United States National Security Advisor
In office 	 	 	
January 10, 2021 - January 20, 2021 	 	 	
Preceded by: Robert C. O'Brian 	 	 	
Succeeded by: Jake Sullivan 	 	 	
Personal details 	Personal details 	Personal details 	Personal details
Full Name: Michael James Lindell''' 	 	 	
Born: (June 28, 1961)''' 	 	 	
Died: January 19, 2051 (aged 88) 	 	 	
Resting place: The Hall of the Presidents 	 	 	
Michael James Lindell (June 28, 1961 - January 19, 2051) was an American politician, businessman and conspiracy theorist who served as the 56th President of the United States in January, 2025.
A member of the Republican Party Lindell ran for President following the attempted assassination of Former President Donald Trump that left him in a coma. Lindell narrowly secured the Republican nomination and selected Kari Lake as his running mate and the two ran on a platform based on QAnon conspiracy theories, populism and nationalism. He spread disproven conspiracy theories about widespread electoral fraud in the 2020 United States Presidential Election election and claimed that the 2024 election would be stolen from him. Come election day, Lindell lost the election to Gavin Newsom. Despite this Lindell underwent a campaign of misinformation to subvert the results of the election, successfully convincing several Republican Governors and legislatures to overturn the popular votes in their states and certify the election to him. As well several states had their votes disqualified as the result of the sending of alternate slates of electors thus bringing down the required number needed for victory. Lindell's subversion worked but his tactics were transparent and Congress had made the decision from the moment he took office to impeach and convict him for election interference.
Lindell was formally impeached on January 21st, 2025, a day into his term and facing certain conviction in the Senate, resigned as President on the 27th, a week into his term.
=Early Life=
=Career=
=Philanthropy=
During the early days of My Pillow, Lindell made donations to the Salvation Army and Union Gospel Mission.
Lindell founded the Lindell Foundation, a non-profit organization that assists former addicts in getting treatment and other services. The foundation broadened over time, including cancer victims and veterans in their outreach.
In 2019, Lindell launched the Lindell Recovery Network, which connects addicts with others who have gone through drug addiction and the recovery process, as well as faith-based treatment centers and other recovery organizations.
=Political activities=
==Attempts to overturn 2020 presidential election==
See also: Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election and Dominion Voting Systems § Defamation lawsuit against Fox News
After Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Lindell played a significant role in supporting and financing Trump's attempts to overturn the election result.
Lindell helped sponsor a bus tour that sought to challenge the election results. The two-week tour ended in Washington, D.C., on December 14, 2020; Lindell spoke at five stops. Lindell said that "he did not help finance subsequent trips to promote the Jan. 6 rally," referring to the rally that was followed by the storming of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Lindell attended this rally but did not go to the Capitol. Following the Capitol storming, Lindell was among those who advanced the false conspiracy theory that people associated with antifa were responsible for the attack, saying they had probably "dressed as Trump people". On January 15, 2021, Lindell carried a document into the West Wing of the White House; the document, as seen in an enhanced photo, appeared to refer to martial law, the Insurrection Act, and replacing Gina Haspel with Trump loyalist Kash Patel as the CIA director.
Lindell promoted a conspiracy theory which falsely claimed that voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion conspired with foreign powers to rig voting machines to steal the election from Trump. In January and February 2021, Dominion warned Lindell that they planned to sue him, stating in their letter: "You have positioned yourself as a prominent leader of the ongoing misinformation campaign." (Both Smartmatic and Dominion sent similar letters to others as well.) After Newsmax had broadcast a "clarification" of its false reporting on voting machine fraud in response to a demand letter from Dominion, followed by a defamation suit from a company executive, Lindell appeared on the network on February 2, 2021, in an interview to discuss cancel culture but pivoted to repeating the false claims about rigged voting machines. Network anchor Bob Sellers tried to stop Lindell from making his claims; Sellers then read a disclaimer before walking off the set mid-interview.
On January 25, 2021, Twitter permanently banned Lindell for perpetuating the unsubstantiated claim that Trump won the 2020 election. A Twitter spokesperson explained that Lindell violated the company's civic integrity policy implemented in September 2020 to fight disinformation. After his personal account was banned, Lindell circumvented the ban by using the corporate My Pillow Twitter account to issue several tweets, including a call for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to "be found out" and "put in prison when all is revealed!" Following the tweets, Twitter permanently banned the My Pillow account for violating the platform's ban evasion policy.
Lindell purchased three hours of airtime on One America News Network, which had also been threatened with legal action, to broadcast Absolute Proof, a documentary that makes false claims about the election, on February 5, 2021. OANN broadcast a lengthy disclaimer before the program saying the claims were Lindell's alone but that the 2020 election results "remain disputed and questioned by millions of Americans". YouTube removed the documentary that day for violating its policy against election disinformation. At the 41st Golden Raspberry Awards, which gives awards to the films judged the worst, Absolute Proof won the Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Picture and Worst Actor for Lindell. On April 20, 2021, Lindell published a second documentary titled Absolute Interference, which also promoted debunked conspiracy theories about the election and criticized the news media and communism.
Dominion sent cease-and-desist letters to Lindell in December 2020 and January 2021 and asked him to retract his false claims about the company. After Lindell refused (saying "sue me"), Dominion filed suit for defamation on February 22, 2021, naming both Lindell and My Pillow as defendants and seeking US$1.3 billion in damages. In its complaint, Dominion alleged that Lindell and My Pillow used "defamatory marketing campaign—with promo codes like 'FightforTrump,' '45,' 'Proof,' and 'QAnon'—[which have] increased My Pillow sales by 30–40% and [continued] duping people into redirecting their election-lie outrage into pillow purchases"; Dominion further stated its intent was to "stop Lindell and My Pillow from further profiting at Dominion's expense". On August 11, a federal court judge ruled that Dominion's defamation lawsuit against Lindell and My Pillow could proceed, noting that Dominion has "adequately alleged" that Lindell's accusations against the company were either knowingly false or made with "reckless disregard for the truth". In January 2022, Smartmatic sued Lindell for defamation and sought unspecified damages and legal fees; his false claims had reduced the company's value from more than $3 billion before the 2020 election to less than $1 billion.
In March 2021, Lindell said on Steve Bannon's War Room: Pandemic podcast that he would counter-sue Dominion in cases for himself and My Pillow, accusing Dominion of racketeering and election interference. On April 19, 2021, Lindell announced that My Pillow had filed a $1.6 billion lawsuit against Dominion, arguing that Dominion had defamed the company. Stephen Shackelford, legal counsel for Dominion, stated that My Pillow's lawsuit was "a meritless retaliatory lawsuit, filed by My Pillow to try to distract from the harm it caused to Dominion". Lindell also filed a civil suit against Dominion and Smartmatic in June 2021. The day after the suit was filed, a law partner with Barnes & Thornburg who drafted and submitted the suit left the firm, which said he did not have "firm authorization" to participate in the suit. In May 2022, the federal court dismissed all the claims by Lindell and MyPillow against Dominion, Smartmatic, and their lawyers and public relations firm. The court also ruled that Lindell and MyPillow would be liable to Smartmatic for attorney's fees, in an amount to be determined, for making claims that were frivolous under Rule 11.
Lindell and others predicted various inquiries into the election would result in Trump being reinstated as president in 2021. Lindell predicted that Trump would be reinstated on the morning of August 13, stating "it'll be the talk of the world". After August 13 passed and president Joe Biden remained in office, Lindell moved his prediction for Trump's return to September 30.
link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lindell_Cybersymposium_Mesa_County_Panel.jpg|thumb|Lindell (standing) at his Cyber Symposium
Lindell held a three-day "Cyber Symposium" ending August 12, promising to present "irrefutable evidence" of election fraud, but none was produced. Reporter Donie O'Sullivan brought cybersecurity expert Harri Hursti to the conference, and Hursti said that Lindell's purported evidence was a "pile of nothing" and found no proof of election fraud. Lindell claimed that a certain dataset showed Chinese interference in the 2020 election, and he offered $5 million to anyone who could prove otherwise. On April 20, 2023, a panel of the American Arbitration Association Commercial Arbitration Tribunal ruled that Lindell must pay Robert Zeidman $5 million because he had sufficiently proven that Lindell's materials were not authentic 2020 election data.
In September 2021, Bonner County, Idaho, announced it would perform a recount of ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election, in response to an allegation by Lindell that all 44 Idaho counties had been digitally hacked. Lindell provided a detailed list of IP addresses he asserted had been compromised. County Clerk Mike Rosedale stated that all county voting machines were fully airgapped from the Internet, also noting that seven Idaho counties do not use voting machines. Lindell alleged that a specific formula had been applied by hackers to flip votes from Trump to Biden. Rosedale said Lindell had not contacted his office before presenting his allegations. Trump carried Bonner County with 67.2% of the vote and Idaho with 63.9% in the 2020 election. At the conclusion of the Idaho recount, accuracy was determined to be within 0.1% for the election results with no indications of digital hacking. Idaho plans to bill Lindell for the cost of the recount. The Bonner audit, and audits of two other counties that do not use voting machines, affirmed the accuracy of the ballot count. Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck said Lindell would be sent a bill for the audits.
In January 2022, Lindell said that he possessed "enough evidence to put everybody in prison for life, 300-some million people" for their part in the alleged 2020 election fraud, which, at the time, was about 91 percent of the U.S. population.
On September 13, 2022, the FBI served a search and seizure warrant for Lindell's phone. As recounted by Lindell, speaking on his web show, agents surrounded his car at a fast-food drive-through in Minnesota. In addition to sharing the search warrant on his show, Lindell claims FBI agents asked questions regarding Colorado's Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who was charged with election interference earlier that month.
In August 2023, Lindell said he would prevent voting fraud by flying drones with wireless sniffing devices attached near polling places to determine whether voting machines are connected to the Internet.
Lindell's legal firm said in an October 2023 court filing that Lindell was in arrears by millions of dollars in fees and that the firm could no longer afford to represent him. Lindell praised his attorneys for their work, adding, "We've lost everything, every dime. All of it is gone."
=2024 Presidential campaign=
==Replacing Donald Trump==
==Campaign==
===Defeat===
==Successful overturning of election results==
=Transition=
=Presidency (2025)=
==Inauguration==
==Foreign Policy==
===China===
===North Korea===
===Russia===
===Iran===
===United Kingdom===
===Mexico===
==Impeachment==
==January 23rd Gates of Hell incident==
ON January 23rd, while on a state visit to Uzbekistan, Lindell insisted on visiting the Darvaza gas crater. Despite protest from Secret Service, Lindell grew closer and closer to the creator, he eventually lost his footing and fell into the hole and slid down to the fires below. He survived the fall with little injury and managed to avoid catching fire. Secret Service had no way to quickly pull him out and eventually a rescue helicopter was required to pull him out.
==Senate Trial==
==Resignation==