The attorneys defending Mike Lindell and his business against defamation claims from voting machine companies are seeking to sever ties with the “MyPillow Guy” over millions of dollars in unpaid legal fees.
In a court filing Thursday, the law firm of Parker Daniels Kibort LLC said Lindell and MyPillow are months behind on their legal bills in three defamation cases, and they can no longer afford to represent him.
“At this time, Defendants are in arrears by millions of dollars to PDK,” the filing said. “PDK is a small litigation and trial firm in Minneapolis, MN and cannot afford to finance Defendants’ defense in the Litigations.”
The firm said that if it was forced to continue providing legal services to Lindell, the “future fees and costs will amount to millions of dollars in addition to the millions of dollars already owed.”
The firm has been defending Lindell in defamation lawsuits filed by voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems, as well as a third lawsuit brought by former Dominion employee Eric Coomer. All three claim their reputations were damaged by Lindell’s repeated fantastical claims of fraud around the 2020 presidential election.
Lindell on Thursday praised his lawyers as “brave and courageous” and said he would gladly keep paying them, if he wasn’t broke.
“We’ve lost everything, every dime,” he told NBC News in a phone interview. “All of it is gone.”
Lindell said his company has faced financial challenges amid the lawsuits and sustained bad publicity, to the point that he can no longer take out any loans.
“They took away my borrowing because of all you guys in the media,” Lindell said, adding that he’d been “canceled” over his comments on the 2020 election.
Asked if he planned to represent himself or hire new lawyers, Lindell said it was too soon to tell.
“This just happened today,” he said.
In its filing, the law firm said Lindell and his company “have been made fully aware of this filing” and “have been advised to obtain other counsel.”
“Defendants have indicated that they understand PDK’s position, do not object, and are in the process of finding new counsel,” the filing said.
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In a March interview with Newsweek, Lindell said he’d been forced to borrow $10 million to pay for his legal fees.
In April, an arbitration panel ordered Lindell to pay $5 million for losing his “Prove Mike Wrong” 2020 election challenge, in which participants were asked to find proof that his cyber data was not valid data from the November 2020 election, as he’d contended it was.
“For the people who find the evidence, 5 million is their reward,” the contest said.
Software developer Robert Zeidman won the challenge, but Lindell refused to pay. Lindell is now challenging the arbitration panel’s ruling.
On Thursday, Lindell told NBC that despite the financial strains on him and his company, he plans to keep pushing his stolen election claims.
“I will never stop trying to secure our elections,” he said.
Lindell is not the only Trump ally facing an action on unpaid legal fees tied to false claims about the 2020 election.
Last month, longtime Rudy Giuliani attorney Robert Costello and his firm sued the former New York City mayor for $1.4 million in unpaid fees.
Giuliani, who’s also being sued by Smartmatic, Dominion and Coomer, has been found liable for defaming two Georgia election workers, and is facing related criminal charges in Fulton County. He’s pleaded not guilty to the Georgia election interference charges.
Trump held a fundraiser in September in support of Giuliani’s legal defense fund.
Giuliani’s son, Andrew Giuliani, who worked in the Trump White House, touted the fundraiser in an interview on WABC radio of New York City in the hours before the fundraiser, saying that while they’d raised over $1 million for this event alone,” it “won’t be enough to get through this.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
