MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell waits outside the West Wing of the White House before entering on January 15, 2021. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images.)
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s calls to get his cellphone back went unanswered on Monday, as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the case more than a year and a half after the FBI seized the device in the drive-thru of a Hardee’s in Minnesota.
In a Monday orders list, Lindell’s case was listed among numerous case denials that the high court also denied without comment.
Lindell filed his petition for a writ of certiorari on Feb. 26, claiming that the U.S. government had retaliated against him in “disturbing” fashion — and in violation of the First and Fourth Amendments — just for “questioning the integrity of computerized voting systems, particularly those used in the 2020 election.”
He has maintained that “lawfare” and a “weaponization of the judicial process” by the Biden administration amounted to a “callous disregard for his constitutional rights.”
The SCOTUS petition was on appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, whose judges — each appointed by Republican presidents — concluded that Lindell, given his “overbroad” request, was neither entitled to an injunction blocking the government from accessing his data nor to the return of his phone.
“Lindell’s motion for injunctive relief is a request for the ultimate relief he seeks. While he has at times attempted to assert otherwise, Lindell’s objective in this action is apparent—this litigation is a tactic to, at a minimum, interfere with and, at most, enjoin a criminal investigation and ultimately hamper any potential federal prosecution related to his, or others, involvement in the public disclosure of forensic images of Mesa County’s election management servers,” the ruling said. “Affording such relief is not only contrary to the purpose of a preliminary injunction but would open the door to a deluge of similar litigation by those under criminal investigation. This type of ultimate relief request is fatal to Lindell’s preliminary injunction application.”
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Lindell’s phone was seized in the drive-thru of a Hardee’s in Mankato while he was returning from a duck hunting trip in September 2022 pursuant to an identity theft, intentional damage to a protected computer, and conspiracy warrant. The government revealed in court filings that Lindell, indicted former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, and others were “subjects” (rather than “targets”) of the federal probe.
The DOJ’s Justice Manual notes that a “subject” of an investigation is an individual “whose conduct is within the scope of the grand jury’s investigation.”
When the appellate court denied Lindell, the panel said that Lindell’s “irritation as to where and how the government took possession of his cellphone does not give rise to a constitutional claim.”
Notably, the Biden administration in March expressly waived its right to respond to the Lindell SCOTUS petition “unless requested to do so” by the justices. On Monday, the government got its answer.
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