Mike Lindell claimed he hadn't even read the notes on 'martial law' that he was carrying in a viral photo before a meeting with Trump: 'They weren't my papers'
- Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, said he never spoke to Trump about martial law.
- Viral photos from January showed Lindell outside the White House carrying notes about "martial law."
- Lindell told Jimmy Kimmel that he didn't write the notes, and that he hadn't even read them.
Days before former President Donald Trump left office, Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, was photographed outside the White House carrying a pile of meeting notes that referenced "martial law" and the "Insurrection Act."
Lindell has now said that he didn't write the notes, he hadn't read them prior to his meeting with Trump, and he never spoke to Trump about martial law.
Lindell's meeting with Trump on January 15, Trump's last Friday in office, went viral after Jabin Botsford, a Washington Post photographer, shared photos of the notes, which Lindell was carrying before the meeting. The meeting happened nine days after pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol.
"They weren't my papers," Lindell told Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday night.
"I had four papers of the evidence, and then these lawyers - there's a whole team of lawyers, like 23 lawyers - they had given me two pieces of paper and said, 'If you get a meeting, go ahead and you can deliver this,'" Lindell said.
"I had not even read it," he added.
Kimmel said this made Lindell look like the lawyers' "paper mule."
Lindell said he gave Trump the papers, and that Robert O'Brien, Trump's national security advisor at the time, was present at the meeting.
Botsford's photographs showed a number of phrases, including "Insurrection Act now as a result of the assault" and "martial law if necessary upon the first hint of any."
The notes also contained the phrases "Move Kash Patel to CIA acting" and "foreign interference in the election trigger [illegible] powers. Make clear this is China/Iran."
Lindell told Kimmel that he visited Trump in the White House to discuss voter fraud and to bring evidence of a Chinese cyberattack that "flipped" the result of the election.
Lindell, a staunch Trump ally, has repeatedly spread debunked claims that the election was stolen from Trump, and has previously said, without evidence, that voting-technology companies Dominion and Smartmatic, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and cyberattacks from China were all part of an election fraud.
Dominion filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against both Lindell and MyPillow in February after he said its voting machines had switched votes from Trump to Biden. Lindell has since filed a motion to dismiss Dominion's lawsuit, and MyPillow has separately filed a $1.6 billion lawsuit against the company, saying Dominion was trying to stifle free speech and engaging in "cancel culture" against those who question it.
During Wednesday's show, Kimmel grilled Lindell on his voter-fraud conspiracy theories and his new social-media site, Frank. Lindell also said that he still speaks to Trump once a month, and that their most recent conversation was about Trump's border fears.