Latest news with #RobertZeidman


New York Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
MyPillow Founder Will Not Pay Winnings for Election Challenge, Court Rules
A federal appeals court has ruled that Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder, does not have to pay out $5 million to a software developer who had entered a challenge held by Mr. Lindell inviting skeptics to disprove his claims of interference in the 2020 presidential election. An arbitration panel had previously ordered Mr. Lindell to pay the $5 million to Robert Zeidman, a software developer who entered Mr. Lindell's 'Prove Mike Wrong' challenge, which offered a $5 million reward to anyone who could debunk what Mr. Lindell called evidence of Chinese interference in the 2020 election. The ruling, issued by an appeals court in Minnesota on Wednesday, signals the end of a yearslong back and forth between Mr. Lindell and Mr. Zeidman, whose battle over the Challenge reward grafts directly from Mr. Lindell's yearslong, baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald J. Trump. 'It's a great day for our country,' Mr. Lindell said in an interview. Mr. Lindell had just landed in Washington, D.C., he said, and was headed to the White House. Mr. Lindell had hosted a symposium in South Dakota in 2021 during which he presented what he said was widespread, software-based data showing interference in the 2020 presidential election. As part of the presentation, Mr. Lindell invited skeptics to join the 'Prove Mike Wrong' challenge, wherein if they were able to debunk Mr. Lindell's claims, they would win $5 million. According to federal court documents, Mr. Zeidman joined the competition and submitted a 15-page packet that internal competition judges said did not adequately disprove Mr. Lindell's data. Mr. Zeidman challenged the result, and later took his case to federal court, where arbitration judges found Mr. Zeidman's packet had 'unequivocally' proven Mr. Lindell's data was not related to the November 2020 election. Mr. Zeidman, who has identified himself to The New York Times previously as a Republican who voted twice for Mr. Trump, has said that he believed Mr. Lindell's claims were harmful to democracy. 'A false narrative about election fraud is just really damaging to this country,' Mr. Zeidman said at the time. The crux of Mr. Zeidman's evidence was that Mr. Lindell's supposed proof of election interference did not include voting machines' packet capture data, which refers to a unique signature on original data that is transferred from a specific place and time. However, in a ruling published on Wednesday, a panel of federal appeals judges found that, because Mr. Lindell's rules for the Challenge were written broadly, the evidence Mr. Zeidman presented debunking Mr. Lindell's claims was not unequivocal. 'From the four corners of the Challenge contract as defined by the Official Rules, there is no way to read 'information related to the November 2020 election' as meaning only information that is packet capture data,' the ruling said. In a separate case decided earlier this year, a federal jury found that Mr. Lindell had defamed a former employee of Dominion Voting Systems, accusing the man of helping to rig votes against Mr. Trump in the 2020 election. He called the man 'a traitor to the United States.' Mr. Lindell was ordered to pay the man, Eric Coomer, $2.3 million in damages, a verdict Mr. Lindell has said he intends to appeal.


CBS News
7 days ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Mike Lindell celebrates victory after appeals court voids $5M award in election data dispute
A federal appeals court handed a victory Wednesday to Mike Lindell, ruling that the MyPillow founder doesn't have to pay a $5 million award to a software engineer who disputed data that Lindell claims proves that China interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an arbitration panel overstepped its authority in 2023 when it awarded $5 million to the engineer, Robert Zeidman, of Las Vegas, who took Lindell up on his "Prove Mike Wrong Challenge." "It's a great day for our country," a jubilant Lindell said in an interview. "This is a big win. It opens the door to getting rid of these electronic voting machines and getting paper ballots, hand-counted." Lindell, one of the country's most prominent propagators of false claims that the 2020 election was a fraud, lost in a different case in Colorado last month. A jury ruled that Lindell defamed a former employee of a voting equipment company by accusing him of treason, and awarded $2.3 million in damages. Lindell said he is appealing, and that he actually considers the verdict a victory because MyPillow itself wasn't found liable. President Donald Trump and his allies lost more than 50 court cases trying to overturn the 2020 election results, and his own attorney general at the time said there was no indication of wide-scale fraud. As part of a "Cyber Symposium" Lindell hosted in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 2021, Lindell offered $5 million for anyone who could prove that "packet captures" and other data he released there were not valid data from the 2020 election. Zeidman entered a 15-page report that he said proved the data wasn't what Lindell claimed. Contest judges declined to declare Zeidman a winner, so he filed for arbitration under the contest rules. A panel of three arbitrators, including one named by Lindell, concluded that Zeidman had satisfied the rules and awarded him $5 million. U.S. District Judge John Tunheim affirmed the award last year. He expressed concern about how the arbitrators interpreted what he called a "poorly written contract," but he said courts have only limited authority to overrule arbitration awards and ordered Lindell to pay up. But the appeals court ruled Wednesday that the arbitrators went beyond the contractual language of the official contest rules in deciding how to construe them, instead of sticking to the document itself. The appeals court said the rules were unambiguous, even if they might have favored Lindell. "Whatever one might think of the logic of the panel's reasoning, it is contrary to Minnesota law. ... Fair or not, agreed-to contract terms may not be modified by the panel or by this court," the appeals court wrote, and sent the case back to the lower court with instructions to vacate the $5 million award. Zeidman attorney Brian Glasser urged people to read the arbitrators' decision and "judge for themselves if the Eight Circuit's decision today is more persuasive, or rings in truth louder, than the unanimous contrary decision of three arbitrators who heard all the evidence, including one appointed by Mr. Lindell."


Washington Post
7 days ago
- Business
- Washington Post
Mike Lindell celebrates victory after appeals court voids $5M award in election data dispute
MINNEAPOLIS — A federal appeals court handed a victory Wednesday to Mike Lindell, ruling that the MyPillow founder doesn't have to pay a $5 million award to a software engineer who disputed data that Lindell claims proves that China interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an arbitration panel overstepped its authority in 2023 when it awarded $5 million to the engineer, Robert Zeidman, of Las Vegas, who took Lindell up on his 'Prove Mike Wrong Challenge.'

Associated Press
7 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Mike Lindell celebrates victory after appeals court voids $5M award in election data dispute
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A federal appeals court handed a victory Wednesday to Mike Lindell, ruling that the MyPillow founder doesn't have to pay a $5 million award to a software engineer who disputed data that Lindell claims proves that China interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an arbitration panel overstepped its authority in 2023 when it awarded $5 million to the engineer, Robert Zeidman, of Las Vegas, who took Lindell up on his 'Prove Mike Wrong Challenge.' 'It's a great day for our country,' a jubilant Lindell said in an interview. 'This is a big win. It opens the door to getting rid of these electronic voting machines and getting paper ballots, hand-counted.' Lindell, one of the country's most prominent propagators of false claims that the 2020 election was a fraud, lost in a different case in Colorado last month. A jury ruled that Lindell defamed a former employee of a voting equipment company by accusing him of treason, and awarded $2.3 million in damages. Lindell said he is appealing, and that he actually considers the verdict a victory because MyPillow itself wasn't found liable. President Donald Trump and his allies lost more than 50 court cases trying to overturn the 2020 election results, and his own attorney general at the time said there was no indication of wide-scale fraud. As part of a 'Cyber Symposium' Lindell hosted in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 2021, Lindell offered $5 million for anyone who could prove that 'packet captures' and other data he released there were not valid data from the 2020 election. Zeidman entered a 15-page report that he said proved the data wasn't what Lindell claimed. Contest judges declined to declare Zeidman a winner, so he filed for arbitration under the contest rules. A panel of three arbitrators, including one named by Lindell, concluded that Zeidman had satisfied the rules and awarded him $5 million. U.S. District Judge John Tunheim affirmed the award last year. He expressed concern about how the arbitrators interpreted what he called a 'poorly written contract,' but he said courts have only limited authority to overrule arbitration awards and ordered Lindell to pay up. But the appeals court ruled Wednesday that the arbitrators went beyond the contractual language of the official contest rules in deciding how to construe them, instead of sticking to the document itself. The appeals court said the rules were unambiguous, even if they might have favored Lindell. 'Whatever one might think of the logic of the panel's reasoning, it is contrary to Minnesota law. ... Fair or not, agreed-to contract terms may not be modified by the panel or by this court,' the appeals court wrote, and sent the case back to the lower court with instructions to vacate the $5 million award. Zeidman attorney Brian Glasser urged people to read the arbitrators' decision and 'judge for themselves if the Eight Circuit's decision today is more persuasive, or rings in truth louder, than the unanimous contrary decision of three arbitrators who heard all the evidence, including one appointed by Mr. Lindell.'