A federal judge has upheld a decision from an arbitration panel directing that Trump ally Mike Lindell of the company MyPillow fulfill a promised payment of $5 million that was to follow anybody making inroads against data he presented in tandem with claims of extensive election fraud.
Robert Zeidman, an extensively experienced computer programming professional, responded accordingly… but the Trump fan has resisted providing the payment previously offered.
The judge, John R. Tunheim, largely though not entirely deferred to the previous decisions of the arbitration panel, as he explained that a federal court’s legal ability to potentially undercut such decisions is very limited. Zeidman’s original findings dashed the idea that the examined data was from the 2020 presidential election at all — which the arbitrators interpreted to demand an actual tie to the electoral process rather than just any relationship to the election. The latter interpretation would have undercut Zeidman’s conclusions, leaving open remaining possibilities of some vaguely defined link to the race.
“The panel’s conclusion that the contract referred to data specifically from the election process considered the fact that anything even remotely connected to the election, as Lindell LLC proposed, could include newspaper articles and broadcast news which would effectively negate the purpose of having a challenge to begin with,” the federal judge said. “The Court finds this step in the interpretation to logically honor and harmonize the contract. Thus, the panel did not modify the contract or exceed its scope by imposing this interpretation.”
Lindell has indicated he plans to appeal. Tunheim’s decision directs that payment be made within 30 days of his order, which was dated February 21. Lindell, meanwhile, remains the subject of other litigation in which the election technology company Dominion Voting Systems alleges defamation over nonsense that Lindell spread about the 2020 presidential election, some of which implicated the company in imaginary election fraud. And similarly positioned figure Sidney Powell also recently saw sanctions stemming from a failed 2020 election lawsuit effectively upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, so the trouble for Trump’s circles continues.
