by Sharon Rondeau
(Apr. 20, 2023) — The mainstream media seized upon the revelation Thursday that an arbitration panel which heard arguments in a dispute between MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and a cyber expert who attended Lindell’s Cyber Symposium in August 2021 sided with the expert, Robert Zeidman, resulting in a finding that Lindell must pay Zeidman a pledged $5 million.
The Post & Email believes CNN was the first to report the development as well as having obtained deposition videos and associated documentation from the hearings.
According to CNN and other media, Zeidman accepted Lindell’s challenge to “prove” that data he would present at the symposium was not gleaned from the 2020 election for an award of $5 million if successful.
Having viewed the data and found it did not comport with Lindell’s claims, Mother Jones reported Thursday, Zeidman “filed a 15-page report for Lindell” but did not receive the promised award.
As The Post & Email has extensively reported, a key part of the story is that Lindell’s purported 2020 election data, purportedly consisting of “PCAPS” (packet captures) was supplied by former government subcontractor Dennis L. Montgomery, who has a lengthy history of making claims involving technology, current events and U.S. government surveillance of citizens which remain uncorroborated.
According to Lindell, Montgomery recorded the election returns in real time, demonstrating that foreign interference changed the outcome of the presidential contest.
In early 2021, Montgomery was reportedly introduced to Lindell by one Mary Fanning Kirchhoefer of The American Report, who in turn was introduced to Lindell by Brannon Howse, broadcaster and founder of Worldview Weekend TV.
The PCAPS Montgomery provided allegedly showed that China and other countries conducted a “cyberwarfare attack” on the election, Fanning and co-writer Alan Jones reported on their website on January 3, 2021, sourced solely to Montgomery.
Initially, however, Fanning and Jones alleged that a computer system known as “The Hammer” and software Montgomery purportedly invented, “Scorecard,” were responsible for the election outcome, commandeered by domestic U.S. government operatives.
Following the symposium, Howse parted ways with Fanning, joining forces with Lindell to launch Lindell’s website, Frankspeech.
In light of the arbitration panel’s decision issued Wednesday, according to Business Insider, Zeidman’s attorney, Brian Glasser, said that “Three judges unanimously decided that we proved to 100% certainty that Mr. Lindell’s data was not related to the 2020 election” and that, although Lindell vowed to appeal to a court, the decision “will never be reversed on appeal.”
On Thursday The Washington Post published the opinion rendered by the American Arbitration Association Commercial Arbitration Tribunal. While none in the media highlighted the connection between Lindell and Montgomery, the tribunal wrote on page 7 of its decision, “The alleged source of most or all the data Lindell LLC received and presented at the Contest was Dennis Montgomery. Allegedly, Mr. Montgomery claimed to
have captured the data from internet traffic using software tools called Hammer and Scorecard.”
Lindell, a devout Christian, has said his introduction to Montgomery on January 9, 2021 was “miraculous” in nature despite warnings he received from the public claiming Montgomery was “a fraud.”
Montgomery was not the only source of the information, Lindell said at his “The Moment of Truth Summit” last August, decrying that Fanning had been “attacked” for her part in connecting Montgomery and Lindell.
After speaking with Montgomery on January 9, 2021, Lindell said, he “spent the next six, seven months validating” the alleged evidence Montgomery provided “to be able to push this out there.”
At The Moment of Truth Summit last summer, Lindell announced his legal team filed a Motion to Intervene in a 16-year-old lawsuit initiated by Montgomery against his then-business partner, Warren Trepp, and the company the two co-founded, eTreppid Technologies, LLC. The motion, Lindell claimed, would, if granted, would allow him to publicly reveal the information Montgomery proffered and therefore prove that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from then-incumbent Donald J. Trump.
In filing the motion, Lindell and one of his attorneys, Kurt Olsen, indicated they were relying on Montgomery’s claim of having developed election-related software which allegedly came to be utilized during the 2020 election and that Montgomery is prohibited from discussing it as a result of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) he signed while an officer at eTreppid, at the time contracted with the Defense Department to provide certain technology to aid in the War on Terror.
The U.S. government did, in fact, request a protective order in the case via the State Secrets Privilege which was granted at the time by the federal judge hearing Montgomery’s case as well as Trepp’s countersuit. Both matters settled in September 2008, and ultimately eTreppid closed.
In response to Lindell’s Motion to Intervene, the U.S. Justice Department denied that the protective order was applicable to anything related to the 2020 election or elections at all.
Along with Lindell’s motion is a “Declaration” from Montgomery recounting his history with eTreppid, among other items, and the claim that he is prohibited from disclosing information about his alleged election-related work.
There has been no movement in the case, Montgomery v. eTreppid Technologies, since January 10, when Montgomery’s legal team filed a “Proposed Order.”