MyPillow conspiracist Mike Lindell sells $2.5m plane to fund fraud lawsuit defence, report says

Businessman among those sued in $1.3bn Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit

Pro-Trump election conspiracist Mike Lindell has sold his MyPillow private jet for $2.5m to fund his defence in a massive voter fraud lawsuit, a report says.

The businessman and other supporters of the one-term president and right-wing news outlets have been sued in a $1.3bn defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems.

The company claims that Mr Lindell and others did serious damage to its reputation by spreading election fraud conspiracy theories related to their voting machines used during the 2020 presidential election.

Now Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records show that Mr Lindell has sold an aircraft registered to MyPillow, according to Salon.com.

The FAA records state that a 1993 Dassault-Breguet Falcon 50 with tail number N497SP was transferred to Clyde Air LLC on 26 July for an undisclosed price.

Salon reports that a similar 1993 Falcon 50 private jet is currently on the market for $2.5m.

Last month Mr Lindell hosted a “Cyber symposium” in South Dakota at which he offered a $5m reward for anyone who could disprove his claims that China hacked the 2020 election.

Josh Merritt, a former member of Lindell’s “red team” at the August event, told Salon the plane had been sold to pay for Mr Lindell’s lawyers.

Mr Merritt told Salon that the sale was done “because he’s needing money” and added that, “he just started raising money for the lawsuit by Dominion”.

When asked by Salon if he had sold the plane, the outlet says that he called them “pond scum” and “slime”.

Mr Lindell, a major Republican donor and regular visitor to the White House when Mr Trump was in office, infamously claimed that Mr Trump would be returned to power by August.

After he was sued by Dominion Voting Systems, Mr Lindell counter-sued them for $1.6bn, claiming the company was trying to prevent free speech.

And in another June lawsuit filed in federal court in Minnesota, he accused Dominion and Smartmatic, another voting company, of “weaponising the litigation process to silence political dissent and suppress evidence showing voting machines were manipulated to affect outcomes in the November 2020 general election.”

Mr Lindell declined to comment when reached by The Independent.