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Lawyers defending outspoken election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell and his companies, MyPillow and FrankSpeech, in a federal defamation lawsuit say they’re owed millions of dollars in legal fees and that they haven’t been paid for months.
The attorneys for Minneapolis-based Parker Daniels Kibort LLC and the Denver-based Reisch Law Firm LLC asked the judge overseeing the suit, filed by former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer, to let them withdraw from the case.
Parker Daniels Kibort said Lindell and his companies informed the firm this week that “they are not able to get caught up with or make any payment on the large amount they owe in arrears nor pay for anywhere near the estimated expense of continuing to defend against the lawsuits going forward, including either the legal fees or litigation costs.”
“Forcing PDK to continue funding defendants’ defense in the above-captioned matter would place PDK in serious financial risk and could threaten the very existence of the firm,” the motion said.
FrankSpeech is a conservative website founded by Lindell.
Coomer, the former director of product strategy and security for Dominion, filed his 67-page lawsuit against Lindell, MyPillow and FrankSpeech in April 2022. The lawsuit alleges Lindell falsely accused Coomer of being a “traitor against the U.S.” as part of claims that Coomer rigged the 2020 presidential election in Joe Biden’s favor.
Lindell, through his attorneys, has denied Coomer’s claims.
Last month, Coomer’s attorneys alleged in a motion that Lindell had been “vulgar, threatening, loud (and) disrespectful” during three depositions in the lawsuit. As part of the motion, Coomer’s lawyers included deposition transcripts and video clips, including one in which Lindell calls one of Coomer’s attorneys an “ambulance-chasing asshole.” Lindell also referred to Coomer as a “scumbag” and blasted U.S. District Judge Nina Wang, who is overseeing the case.
Coomer’s attorneys asked Wang to order Lindell to appear for a deposition in federal court in Colorado. She hasn’t ruled on the request.
The attorneys for Parker Daniels Kibort say they also haven’t been paid for their work in two other defamation cases brought against Lindell, one by Dominion, which is based in Denver, and another by Smartmatic, another electronic voting systems company.
Dominion and Smartmatic have alleged over $1 billion in damages against Lindell and MyPillow in each case.
According to the attorneys, Lindell and his companies paid the firm in a timely manner through the end of 2022.
“In 2023, Defendants’ payments began to slow,” the motion said. “In addition, around this time, total litigation fees and costs in the litigations dramatically increased.”
The Reisch Law Firm said it, too, was informed by Lindell and his companies this week that they “would no longer pay any attorney’s fees in this matter.” The defendants haven’t paid their bills in months, according to the firm.
Coomer is suing a host of other election conspiracy theorists, including former President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign; Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell; and Joe Oltmann, a Colorado-based conservative podcaster.
One America News and Chanel Rion, one of the far-right channel’s correspondents, settled a lawsuit in Denver District Court with Coomer on Aug. 30.