Lyin’ Mike Lindell can now officially go by Liable Mike Lindell. A federal jury ordered him to pay around $2 million in damages to a former voting machine employee he defamed repeatedly while spreading lies about the 2020 election.
Chalk up another court victory for the people of Colorado.
No state has held election deniers to account with more success than the Centennial State. From Lindell to Tina Peters to Donald Trump, Colorado has been at the forefront of combating election lies. That is important in a country where so many have bought into those lies hook, line and sinker.
Lindell spread lies with no basis in reality by leveraging the personal fortune he acquired fooling the same people into buying lumpy pillows. The mustachioed buffoon targeted Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems and Eric Coomer, a Dominion employee — who both had outstanding reputations in the election administration world — with fever-dream conspiracy theories. When faced with hard evidence that contradicted those lies, Lindell doubled down on his rhetoric.
Lindell went as far as to call Coomer “disgusting,” “treasonous” and “a traitor to the United States of America.” Accusing someone of a capital crime, especially in the circles Lindell wallows in, goes beyond free speech. It is dangerous and life-threatening. The tragic assassinations in Minnesota last week make that clear.
But leaving the state to find folks willing to make violent threats based on election lies is unnecessary. Just a few weeks ago another Colorado court sentenced Teak Ty Brockbank, who threatened the Secretary of State and other election officials, to three years in prison. Brockbank said he had been influenced by online election conspiracies similar to the ones Lindell trafficked in against Dominion and Coomer.
It is evident that Lindell did not just sully Coomer’s reputation, but put a target on him. For doing his job, and doing it well, Lindell ensured that violent, unstable individuals would focus their anger on Coomer. Death threats and ugly attacks followed. Lindell did not care how his actions affected Coomer. He continued to dump money into the vicious attacks.
Lindell’s millions bought him the current lawsuit.
I am sure Lindell will pitch the verdict as some type of vindication. After all, the order is for only a fraction of the $62 million Coomer sought. But those are just more lies and misleading statements.
Even an order for a dollar in damages, much less millions, would have been a win against Lindell. Defamation cases have a very high threshold. In America, the First Amendment protects an exceptionally wide latitude of speech, more than in most countries. That protection is heightened for political speech.
The deck is always stacked against a plaintiff trying to clear that bar.
But Coomer did. HIs team put together the evidence, the arguments and the case to sail over the hurdle before them. No matter how red in the face or loud Lindell got, no matter how many times he repeated his lies, the jury simply did not buy what he was selling. Coloradans have proved to be pretty good at analyzing the evidence first and foremost.
Lindell could have paid a visit to his buddy Tina Peters during visiting hours if he had any doubts. Following his lead, she tried the same trick in front of a Colorado jury. The jury did not buy her story, either. To the contrary, joining forces with Lindell at a conference after she broke into voting machines sealed her fate.
Even the U.S. Department of Justice, corrupted beyond recognition in its current iteration, has been unable to help Peters. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and his team have stood up for the state, its courts and its juries to ensure that the rule of law still means something in our state, if not everywhere across the country.
If the fates of Peters and Brockbank in Colorado courts could not dissuade Lindell, I would have been glad to walk him through the case I brought against his golden idol, Donald Trump. While the U.S. Supreme Court let Trump slide through a legal loophole, the evidence nonetheless proved that he had engaged in election lies to foment an insurrection. Multiple Colorado courts agreed and no court, even SCOTUS, ever undermined those factual findings.
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That is a whole host of cases that should have given Lindell pause. He should have known that his bluster and bluff would not carry weight in our state. He should have known that false claims and lies would be dismissed by a Colorado jury presented with facts and verifiable evidence. Lindell had precedent to know the Colorado system of justice is as strong and immovable as our mountains.
Despite all that, Lindell continued to spew his conspiracies in court. He continued to make claims he knew could not be supported. He continued to assail Coomer and Dominion with false claims and illogical conspiracies
In the end, Lindell found out the price for such actions. It is a little more than $2 million.
Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care and public policy. Follow him on BlueSky: @MarioNicolais.bsky.social.
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