An administrative law judge in Minnesota has found probable cause to believe Mike Lindell, candidate for Minnesota governor and the MyPillow founder, violated campaign finance law by handing out free pillows at a public event last month.
In a four-page ruling issued on Thursday, Judge Nicholas Lienesch found that a complaint against Lindell had enough to move on to an evidentiary hearing in front of a three-judge administrative panel.
“There is probable cause to believe that the pillows in this case were a thing of monetary value and were not explicitly exempted by any provision of the statute,” Lienesch wrote. “There is probable cause to believe that the pillows were distributed in order to induce a voter to vote in a particular way at an election.”
Lindell, one of Donald Trump’s most reliable political allies and a US pillow advertising fixture, is running for Minnesota governor against six Republican rivals, including Minnesota’s house speaker, Lisa Demuth, and state GOP-endorsed candidate Kendall Qualls, and seven Democrats, including the Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar.
The candidates face a primary election next week to tease out who will go head-to-head in November.
Reached for comment on Friday, Lindell argued the pillow giveaway complaint was “complete nonsense”.
“It’s been a nonstop campaign since President Trump endorsed me three weeks ago,” he said, claiming that he had checked out the pillow giveaway ahead of time with Minnesota’s campaign finance board. “We got everything completely OKed. This a just a catch-up right before the primary to put doubt in people’s heads. We did everything right. There was no law broken, period.
“It’s just an attack,”Lindell added. “It’s disgusting.”
On Tuesday, Lindell said he was stepping down as MyPillow CEO to focus his “time and energy” on his run for governor, calling it “one of the biggest decisions” of his life.
The complaint against Lindell was brought by Dan Fiskum, a Democrat running for state senate, saying that Lindell threw free pillows from the company he started at an event at a Fourth of July parade in Delano, Minnesota.
Under Minnesota law, it is impermissible to give away or promise something of monetary value to induce a voter to vote in a particular way or refrain from voting. Food and beverages valued at less than $5 are exempted. Lindell has said that the pillows he threw were bought wholesale for $4.90 each.
Thursday’s ruling does not say Lindell broke the law with the pillow distribution, but Lienesch wrote that he was determining whether “sufficient facts exist in the record to believe that a violation of the law has occurred”.
Lindell’s MyPillow fortune, once valued at $300m, has diminished in recent years and he has faced defamation lawsuits and financial judgments over his claims that the 2020 US presidential election was rigged.
The candidate said at a hearing on Monday that he could not see a difference between the pillows, which came with campaign literature, and typical campaign trinkets like buttons and keychains.
Lindell compared the pillow giveaway to his campaign purchasing his memoir – titled What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO – and handing it out free at campaign events.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that he was asked what the pillow was worth to people who got one. Lindell responded that most of the pillows went to kids and “those little kids, they like a good night’s sleep and hug that pillow”, but acknowledged that sleep patterns “would be subjective between each individual”.
For the adults who received a pillow, Lindell said: “The gift of sleep, I don’t know, it’s all subjective. I don’t think any one of them said: ‘Oh I’m getting a value of $10 and I’m getting it for free.’”
