Mike Lindell, the pro-Donald Trump conspiracy theorist, said on Tuesday that the FBI had seized his cell phone.
Mr Lindell, the Minnesota-born CEO of My Pillow and a staunch supporter of the former president who rose to national prominence for his long-running attempts to help overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, said that his cell phone was seized in Minnesota.
In an appearance on the programme The Lindell Report, Mr Lindell said that he was returning from a hunting trip in Iowa when his car was surrounded at a Hardee’s drive-thru in his hometown of Mankato in southern Minnesota.
“Cars pulled up in front of us, to the side of us, and behind us and I said those are either bad guys or the FBI,” Mr Lindell said. “Well, it turns out they were the FBI.”
The execution of a search warrant on Mr Lindell represents another strike by the FBI against a member of Mr Trump’s circle. Mr Lindell advised Mr Trump as president, including on a pseudo-scientific Covid cure, and has been one the most ardent promoters of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
“The FBI came after me and took my phone,” Mr Lindell said in another clip posted to social media. “They surrounded me at a Hardee’s and took my phone that I run all my business, everything with. What they have done is weaponise the FBI, it’s disgusting. I don’t have a computer, that phone, everything was on everybody.”
Mr Lindell then flashed for the camera a piece of paper that he claimed is an order not to tell anyone about the search.
The Post Millennial reported that Mr Lindell said FBI officials asked him questions about the Colorado and Dominion voting machines before informing him of their warrant to take his phone. Mr Lindell then said he consulted with a lawyer before ultimately surrendering his phone.
In a statement to the Associated Press, FBI spokesperson Vikki Migoya said: “Without commenting on this specific matter, I can confirm that the FBI was at that location executing a search warrant authorised by a federal judge.”
Mr Lindell said the FBI questioned him about Dominion Voting Systems, Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and his connection to Doug Frank, an Ohio educator who claims voting machines have been manipulated.
The FBI along with local prosecutors in Colorado are probing Ms Peters, who was elected in 2018 to oversee elections in Mesa County. She has been charged with several offenses, including attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation and official misconduct.
In August 2021, Ms Peters appeared onstage at a “cybersymposium” hosted by Mr Lindell, who has sought to prove that voting machines have been manipulated and promised to reveal proof of that during the event.
Attendees and state officials have said that a copy of Mesa County’s voting system hard drive was distributed and posted online.
The copy included proprietary software developed by Dominion Voting Systems that is used by election offices around the country.
The unauthorised release, according to experts, is serious as it can allow anyone to find vulnerabilities that could be used in future elections.
The Mesa County breach is just one of several around the country that have concerned election security experts.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson was displeased by the news — announcing that the raid confirmed the “Soviet” nature of the Biden administration’s FBI.
“We told you last night that the Biden administration has politicised law enforcement to the point where it feels Soviet — and we were not overstating it,” Carlson said on his programme. “The FBI has just raided the guy who sells pillows on this channel, not because the pillows were bad, but because they didn’t like who he voted for.”
