Mike Lindell’s conspiracy theory laced three-day cyber-symposium on alleged election fraud takes the Trump Traveling Circus to new heights.
The right-wing ‘pillow guy’ promised to present “world-changing” information that will force the Supreme Court to reinstate Donald Trump as president.
That information has not presented itself, with Lindell instead making stuff up as he goes.
His general claim ― which was presented without evidence ― is that Chinese government hackers changed thousands of votes in every state by accessing them over the Internet.
That’s something for which election security experts have found zero evidence and they say would be effectively impossible.
“This is a big fat nothing and a distraction,” said Harri Hursti, a longtime election security expert who attended the conference to fact check any technical evidence.
Hursti is among the most prominent critics of voting machine security but has slammed election-fraud claims by Donald Trump and his supporters for lacking any hard evidence.
The flop of a conference reflects a recent theme in which Trump supporters have blasted the public with baseless claims of election fraud, promising big reveals that never materialize.
Partisan audits in Arizona and elsewhere have followed a similar path.
As did countless lawsuits filed by the former president.
At one point, Lindell also showed everybody a video, which seems to lay out the grand narrative for his conspiratorial vision.
It alleges that the 2020 election was stolen by a cabal of deep-state goons, the Chinese government, George Soros, and corrupt electioneering vendors like Dominion Voting Systems.
Ongoing audits and reviews by knowledgable security professionals have repeatedly debunked many of the claims made by Trump acolytes—not that it matters to them.
Perhaps the most absurd part of Lindell’s whole “symposium” stunt is that he has offered $5 million to any cybersecurity professional who can look at his “data packets” and prove that claims of voter fraud are incorrect.
Well, a number of infosec professionals are actually attending the event, though none of them seem to be under the delusion that they’re going to walk away with cash.
Rather, many came in the hopes of seeing what Lindell is talking about and instead have weathered an unending tidal wave of lies.
The conference is among many examples of how the election’s legitimacy is still being litigated ― often to the detriment of public faith in democratic processes.
Also yesterday, Dominion Voting Systems filed lawsuits against Newsmax and One America News, claiming defamation.
Dominion was at the center of baseless accusations propagated by Trump, Lindell and others claiming election fraud.
The company’s action is the latest in a series of defamation lawsuits from Dominion and another voting company, Smartmatic, that have also targeted Fox News.