Mike Lindell’s Big ‘Election Crime’ Summit Flops at the Start

MAGA pillow magnate Mike Lindell kicked off his latest “election crime” summit on Wednesday by boasting how the “important” event would once and for all provide a “plan to secure our elections immediately.”

In true Lindell fashion, of course, the event went off the rails in only a matter of minutes, after he mistakenly aired a video of Jimmy Kimmel.

During a conversation with The Daily Beast last month in which he laid out his “My Cousin Vinny” plan to defeat Dominion Voting System’s $1.3-billion defamation lawsuit against him, Lindell previewed this event. Promising that it would “fix the elections” and “everyone is gonna love this,” Lindell wondered why no one had ever thought of this before. At the same time, he claimed this week’s summit would help him defeat the Dominion suit over his baseless election fraud claims because of the overwhelming evidence he’d supposedly reveal.

Following the indictment of former President Donald Trump for attempting to overthrow Georgia’s election results, Lindell further hyped up the Missouri conference by calling Trump the “real president” and vowing to unveil the “perfect,” divine-ordained plan to “bring hope to our country.” The pillow mogul added that he “kept this plan to secure our elections completely secret” and would reveal it all at the event.

However, at the start of Wednesday’s confab, Lindell told the crowd that he wouldn’t show any new evidence of rampant voter fraud, adding that he’d already shown enough in the past. After taking the stage, a screen blared “Election Crime Bureau” behind him.

“This historical election summit is so important that it’s being broadcast around the world in 85 languages on FrankSpeech.com,” he declared. “This election summit is not going to be about more evidence. We have enough evidence. Evidence has been the easy part. This summit is all about hope and the plan to secure our elections immediately.”

He then directed the audience to the screen to watch a video, only to quickly grow flustered: It was the wrong video, showing Kimmel delivering a monologue. (The late-night host has famously hosted Lindell to roast the MyPillow chief over his conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being “stolen” from Trump.)

“No, no, no. This is the wrong one,” Lindell shouted as the crowd laughed. “This is the wrong one. Hold on. Well, that’s coming!”

Of course, Lindell bumbling during a symposium that offered empty promises of exposing election fraud was ultimately nothing new.

In fact, an arbitrator recently ruled that Lindell must pay $5 million to a man who disproved the election-denying businessman’s claims of Chinese interference in the 2020 election during his 2021 “Cyber Symposium.” Lindell, meanwhile, is disputing the ruling and insists he will come out “victorious” in the end.

With a renewed focus on Trump’s false claims of a “rigged” 2020 election due to the recent indictments, Lindell’s summit is ground zero this week for election dead-enders and conspiracists. Among those scheduled to speak this week are Trump’s fellow Georgia indictee Rudy Giuliani, former Trump strategist (and Jan. 6 plotter) Steve Bannon, and ex-Fox host Lou Dobbs.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now.

Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now.