It hasn’t been a good week for people spreading false claims about the 2020 presidential election.
First, Fox News settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems and acknowledged that the court found some of its claims about the company to be false.
Now a A private arbitration panel has ruled that the CEO of My Pillow Mike Lindell must pay $5 million to the person who won the “Prove Mike Wrong” challenge at the Lindell 2021 “cyber-symposium” in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, according to The Washington Post.
Lindell made the challenge after claiming that he was data showing evidence of Chinese interference in the 2020 election. They are offering to pay $5 million to anyone who can prove the material has nothing to do with the election.
Robert Zeidman, a 63-year-old computer forensics expert and Donald Trump voter from Nevada, was the only one to file a statement. They concluded that Lindell’s data was not evidence of voter fraud and, worse (at least for Lindell), the data was presented. it has nothing to do with the 2020 election.
In a 23-page decision issued Wednesday, the panel ruled on Zeidman’s favor, said the data used in Lindell’s challenge “clearly does not reflect November 2020 election data.”
The panel directed Lindell’s firm to pay Zeidman within 30 days, but Lindell appeared reluctant to go along with his own contest rules.
“He made a very wrong decision! This will go to court!” Lindell told the Post via text.
The paper notes that Lindell faces a $1.3 billion defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems and a defamation lawsuit from one of Dominion’s former executives.
The award is the latest humiliation Lindell will face as a result of the 2021 “cyber symposium.”
The three-day event went viral for all the wrong reasons.
For example, one of the experts hired to decrypt and analyze Lindell’s data was reportedly unable to prove that it was evidence of hacking.
Lindell also told a CNN reporter when he couldn’t release the data he promised, because he didn’t “need the media driving the narrative before my case goes to the Supreme Court.”
Twitter users had strong feelings about Wednesday’s verdict.