Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump and his unproven claims of election fraud, had his account permanently suspended by Twitter Monday, according to multiple reports. A company spokesperson tells NBC News that Lindell was suspended "due to repeated violations of its Civic Integrity Policy."
CNN also reported the suspension, citing a new policy by the company following the Jan. 6 insurrection by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol in which five people were killed. That policy reportedly says "people who repeatedly share election misinformation can be permanently banned."
Lindell has been among the Trump allies who have repeated the former president's false claims of election fraud. Many of Lindell's claims about the outcome, won by President Joe Biden, were labeled by Twitter as disputed. He posted but later deleted a tweet in December calling on Trump to declare martial law and seize the ballots and voting machines in seven key states.
State elections officials across the country, the former head of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and former U.S. Attorney General William Barr have said that there was no voter fraud on a scale that would have cost Trump the election. Biden won by an Electoral College vote of 306-232 and a popular vote of more than 7 million.
While Lindell said he opposed the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection by Trump supporters, MyPillow’s logo was prominently featured on on TrumpMarch.com, a website that promoted the Trump rally that preceded the riot. Lindell has claimed “antifa” was responsible for the riot, even though authorities say there’s no evidence of that. He said he’s still holding out hope that the U.S. Supreme Court would somehow put Trump back in office.
Lindell has said he is weighing a run for the Minnesota governor. He told the Associated Press that Trump said to him, “Mike, if you did it, I would get behind you.”
As Lindell considers a run, his immediate future includes business and potential legal challenges. His amplification of Trump’s false claims of election fraud led some major retailers, including Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s, to discontinue MyPillow products. And the parent company of Dominion Voting Systems, which is already suing lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell for defamation, has demanded that Lindell retract his accusations that its voting machines played a role in Trump’s loss.
