Court Responds to Lindell Filings

by Sharon Rondeau

(Sep. 24, 2022) — The docket for a previously-closed federal case in which MyPillow CEO Michael Lindell seeks to intervene has been updated to acknowledge Lindell’s August 20, 2022 filings, the assignment of a judge and a preliminary response from the United States of America.

The 2006 lawsuit, Montgomery v. eTreppid Technologies, LLC, was settled in September 2008 after plaintiff Dennis Montgomery, then a part-owner in eTreppid, claimed the company infringed his copyright on software he allegedly invented which was supplied to the U.S. Defense Department beginning in 2003/2004.

Now defunct, eTreppid contracted with the DOD to produce “software compression, Automatic Target Recognition (ATR), and biometric products” which the DOD sought to use in the War on Terror declared after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

As Lindell told his audience at “The Moment of Truth Summit” on August 21, his attorneys have asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada to lift a 15-year-old Protective Order granted to the government in the case to prevent the specifics of eTreppid’s work with U.S. “intelligence agencies” to be disclosed during litigation.

At the time, then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Negroponte claimed any release of the details surrounding eTreppid’s government contracts could harm “national security” and invoked the Protective Order and State Secrets Privilege.

In January 2021, Lindell has claimed, Montgomery told him he possesses years-old evidence of election-tampering on the part of the U.S. government and election-machine vulnerabilities which he claimed are relevant to the 2020 presidential election. For his part, Lindell seeks to use Montgomery’s “Data,” which he says he purchased in large part from Montgomery, as a defense against a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. and is therefore seeking a revocation of the Protective Order.

In a Declaration filed with the court accompanying a copy of Dominion’s suit, Lindell wrote (page 3):

4. The Complaint in the D.C. alleges that I made defamatory statements. I made some of the statements placed into issue by that Complaint relying in part on information that originated from Dennis Montgomery (“Montgomery”), a party to the above-captioned action.

5. I intend to use testimony and evidence concerning Montgomery’s background, his work, and his work for U.S. intelligence agencies to defend the reasonability and veracity of statements at issue in the D.C. Litigation.

6. I agreed to acquire ownership from Montgomery of some of the information that I intend to use to defend myself in the D.C. Litigation (the “Data”). I will use the Data to show that my statements regarding the 2020 election, placed at issue in the D.C. Litigation, were reasonable and true. My statements were in part made in reliance on the Data.

In February 2021, Dominion filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Lindell and MyPillow, claiming Lindell sought to enrich his brand as he allegedly defamed the company by asserting it was responsible for changing votes en masse from then-incumbent Pres. Donald J. Trump to Democrat Joe Biden through “algorithms” (p. 18).

As The Post & Email has reported, eTreppid was not known to have dealt with election software or systems, thus it is unclear where or when Montgomery allegedly discovered “election data” within “FBI/CIA/NSA domestic surveillance programs” as stated in a 194-page “Declaration” included with Lindell’s Motion (p. 5).

According to Montgomery, he observed “proof of us gov election surveillance and tampering” which he believes the Protective Order prohibits him from releasing.

“Seized documents and electronic media reflected voting machines manufacturers [sic] vulnerabilities to hacking,” Montgomery further stated in the document. “Voting machine manufacturers [sic] communications and intellectual property we hijacked by us gov numerous times over the years I worked in FBI/CIA/NSA surveillance programs, foreign and domestic.”

Whether or not Montgomery intended to write, “were hijacked” for “we hijacked” is unknown, as is exactly when he allegedly “worked in” “domestic” government surveillance products when eTreppid was supplying technology to be used overseas. In fact, shortly after then-NSA subcontractor Edward Snowden in June 2013 produced documents to The Guardian demonstrating the U.S. government’s massive collection of personal data across the Internet without a warrant, Montgomery has claimed such “domestic” surveillance to be illegal.

Moreover, in #13 of his Declaration, he states, “Beginning in 2005, I became aware that the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) had started using the eTreppid technology that I had developed for locating terrorists abroad to conduct surveillance of citizens of the United States, including members of the Supreme Court of the United States and thousands of other federal and state jurists, members of Congress, state officeholders, numerous public figures and religious leaders in the U.S., and other Americans” (p. 3).

In #21, Montgomery states that after he “learned of CIA and NSA’s domestic surveillance using the technology I had developed,” he “filed whistleblower complaints” with numerous government entities in which he “objected to the misuse of this surveillance technology to monitor the private communications, bank records, attorney client communications, voting information and other private activities of American citizens.”

Because the magistrate judge, Valerie P. Cooke, who presided over Montgomery and the 2008 settlement conference is retired, the docket states, Chief Judge Miranda M. Du will preside over the newest developments.

As the United States was a defendant in Montgomery, it was notified as to Lindell’s Motion and on September 2 granted an extension of time to respond to October 6.

On September 6 and 15, respectively, notices Lindell’s attorneys sent to Blxware, another defunct company and an old address for Montgomery in Rancho Mirage, CA were returned as “undeliverable,” the docket shows.

On page 2 of the Declaration, Montgomery stated he is a “Resident of the State of Florida.” “Blxware,” a company for which he worked during 2009 until it, too, was dissolved due to the owner’s bankruptcy, is now the name of a limited liability company registered in Montgomery’s name to a Naples, FL luxury residence possibly purchased by Lindell through a trust.

Montgomery has registered the domain names “etreppid.org” and blxware.org,” which redirect to a website he operates referencing a narrative he has long promoted surrounding an alleged government super-computer, “The Hammer,” which, he claims, was used by government bad actors to conduct surveillance of and collect personal information on U.S. citizens.

On October 31, 2020, Montgomery reportedly claimed “The Hammer” to have been turned on the presidential election, with early voting in progress in some states, to change its outcome from a Trump victory to one for Biden.

Just over two months later, Montgomery reportedly claimed he possessed evidence that China, with participation from a number of other foreign countries, launched a “coordinated cyberwarfare attack” on the election, using a “third HAMMER.” The referenced “video” allegedly proving that assertion has been removed from Montgomery’s website.

Curiously, on his biographical website, Montgomery makes no claim to have developed “election” technology.

Despite his numerous claims to be under a “gag order” as a result of the State Secrets Privilege and Protective Order, at the bottom of his website, Montgomery claims he “built foreign surveillance technology for the US intelligence community” under the “Codename” “Hannah.”