Eight months into Joe Biden’s presidency, the MyPillow man, Mike Lindell, staged an occasion in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, that he promised would return Donald Trump to the White Home. The three-day Cyber Symposium revolved round a mysterious cache of laptop information that Lindell had surreptitiously acquired. In his telling, the information proved that Chinese language hackers had manipulated American voting machines into securing Biden’s victory.
“The election was stolen, and we’re proving it proper right here, aren’t we?” Lindell crowed to some 200 attendees on the primary evening, sweating by way of his go well with. “President Trump is the rightful president, are you with me?”
One attendee, Bob Zeidman, who had voted for Trump twice, hoped this was true. A light-mannered, 64-year-old Republican, Zeidman chafed on the former president’s demagoguery. However he is extra repelled by the Democrats, whom he believes have “gone so loopy with their wokeness and socialism.” As an authority in software program forensics — the artwork of digital problem-solving — Zeidman has been an professional witness in additional than 260 courtroom instances, together with the 2021 Supreme Courtroom battle between Oracle and Google and the struggle between Mark Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss twins. He wished to see the proof of vote rigging that Lindell claimed to have collected, and he was open to the likelihood {that a} huge conspiracy, together with Democrats utilizing mail-in voting and poll harvesting to manufacture votes, had stolen the election from Trump.
“There was fraud within the election as a result of there’s fraud in each human endeavor,” Zeidman stated. “How a lot fraud? I do not know.” He had traveled to Sioux Falls intending to seek out out.
Lindell had bought his prized information for some $1.5 million from a software program developer named Dennis Montgomery. Within the early 2000s, Montgomery had gained tens of millions of {dollars} in Pentagon contracts after he satisfied the CIA that he had constructed software program that would intercept terrorist messages hid in Al Jazeera broadcasts. But it surely turned out to be a hoax: A prime CIA official referred to as Montgomery’s software program “imaginary voodoo” and “bullshit,” and one in all Montgomery’s personal legal professionals referred to as him a “con artist” and “a recurring liar engaged in fraud.” However none of that bothered Lindell. He praised Montgomery as “one of many smartest people who has ever walked this Earth.” And to show his confidence in Montgomery’s information, he introduced a high-stakes wager: If anybody on the Cyber Symposium may exhibit that the information did not present election meddling, he would award them $5 million. He referred to as it the Show Mike Mistaken problem.
Bob Zeidman has many obsessions, and one in all them is poker. He lives in Las Vegas, the place he competes in poker tournaments each week. He entered the Show Mike Mistaken problem with low confidence he would win the exorbitant pot, estimating he had a 0.5% likelihood of disproving Lindell’s “proof.” Nonetheless, as he later wrote in a prolonged LinkedIn put up, he would have a “100% likelihood of with the ability to write about what would definitely be one of the crucial attention-grabbing and essential conferences in current historical past.”
The numbers purporting to exhibit election fraud, Zeidman concluded, have been themselves a fraud.
However as Zeidman analyzed the reams of knowledge offered to him and the opposite cyber specialists on the symposium, his confidence rose. When he transformed the information right into a Phrase doc, he found it was stuffed with line after line of meaningless letters and numbers. It was as if someone had typed in what they imagined laptop code may seem like. “I confirmed that it was completely formatted, reliable gibberish,” Zeidman stated. “In different phrases, it was an actual Phrase doc stuffed with gibberish, not a doc that Phrase did not perceive.” Much more suspiciously, the information information have been time-stamped to just some days earlier than the symposium, that means they have been doubtless created for the occasion, not collected from errant voting machines. The numbers purporting to exhibit election fraud, Zeidman concluded, have been themselves a fraud.
By the second day, Zeidman was sure he had disproved Lindell’s claims. He filed a damning report and registered a replica on-line with the US Copyright Workplace as proof he had written it by the competition deadline. Then he referred to as his spouse from the lodge parking zone. “All I wish to say,” he informed her, “is that it’s best to begin eager about the way you wish to spend $5 million.”
After returning dwelling to Vegas, Zeidman waited to listen to from Lindell’s folks in regards to the award. Although he’s already a multimillionaire, with a number of patents and companies to his title, $5 million remained an thrilling prospect. Antsy with nervous power, he upped his poker enjoying. However as a Trump backer, he was puzzled by the apparent fraudulence of the information, which he specified by his LinkedIn put up: “Was somebody sabotaging Mike’s information? Or had Mike been bamboozled? Or was Mike the bamboozler?”
A number of weeks later, Lindell’s staff lastly received again to Zeidman: They have been refusing to pay up. Zeidman, they argued, had failed to fulfill the necessities of the problem, which stipulated {that a} winner should show “to 100% certainty” that the information was not “associated to the election.”
Undeterred, Zeidman sued one in all Trump’s most vociferous advocates for contract violation. In February, after days of deliberation, an arbitration continuing in Minnesota sided with Zeidman. He had certainly Confirmed Mike Mistaken, and now Mike should pay.
Quickly after the ruling, I arrived in Vegas to fulfill Zeidman. His good-looking dwelling sits in a gated neighborhood in Sumerlin, a residential space within the excessive desert. A “Stand With Israel” signal adorned his entrance yard. He and his artist spouse, Carrie, acquire trendy artwork, which crowded the partitions of their lounge. Out again was a big pool. Not too long ago, after Zeidman began swimming commonly, he turned pissed off with attempting to maintain observe of his laps, so he invented a counting instrument to do it for him. A newly patented prototype sat on the kitchen counter.
I used to be fascinated by what affect, if any, Zeidman’s expertise with Lindell had made on his politics. Lindell, for all his cartoonish bombast, has clearly been following a path of election denial solid by Trump. It’s Trump, in any case, who has made his case for voter fraud the centerpiece of his reelection marketing campaign. The fabrications have been wildly profitable at firing up his base: Current polling suggests that almost 70% of Trump’s supporters imagine that the 2020 election was “stolen” by the Democrats.
Zeidman, although sympathetic, shouldn’t be absolutely on board. “What Lindell is doing is hurting America and hurting Republicans, as a result of it is dividing us and it is mistaken,” he informed me. “I’ve had a number of different Republicans say to me, ‘OK, however you do not have to broadcast this.’ And I say, ‘No, it is the reality. The reality needs to be on the market. We allegedly stand for the reality, OK? Not the relative reality, however the absolute reality.'”
Jared Bartman for BI
Zeidman requires fixed stimulation. Throughout conferences, he makes positive to sit down by a door in case boredom forces him to flee. Every time he is idle, he turns into “terribly depressed.” To maintain busy, he invents gizmos and software program. He pens satirical political novels and computer-science textbooks and conservative op-eds on his Substack or for publications just like the Cleveland Jewish Information. He adores films, although plot holes ruffle him. His favourite movie is “Memento,” as a result of “all of it connects collectively.” He speaks commonly at engineering conferences and attends political ones.
Since younger maturity, Zeidman has “leaned conservative.” But it surely was not till the presidency of George W. Bush that he began going to political occasions and carefully following social gathering politics. He describes himself as a “uncommon species”: a Republican Jew. American assist for Israel is one in all his chief issues. He stays an incredible fan of Bush.
He has all the time discovered Trump distasteful: “He is a very nasty man.” But he understands Trump’s enchantment as a totem of conservative grievance, a lot of which he shares: left-wing media bias, excessive taxes, political correctness. He pinpoints the genesis of Trump’s rise to Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama in 2012.
“The Democratic Celebration attacked Romney so strongly on ethical points when this man was an impressive ethical chief,” he stated. “I believe that pissed off so many individuals that they stated, ‘OK, whoever we put in workplace goes to be trashed, so let’s discover a man who trashes again.’ And that was Trump.”
One other man who trashes again is Mike Lindell. After quite a few failed ventures — a bar, a meals truck, a carpet-cleaning enterprise — the Minnesota native discovered wild success together with his firm MyPillow, which he claims hit revenues of $300 million in 2018. His zany infomercials, signature mustache, and Midwestern whimsy turned a TV staple throughout the nation. (Zeidman himself is a cheerful buyer; he enjoys the pillow’s “slumber-inducing qualities.”) Much more spectacular, Lindell prevailed after overcoming a extreme crack dependancy, as recounted in his memoir “What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO.” In restoration, he turned a dedicated evangelical Christian. Trump, he believes, was “chosen by God” to be president.
In his transactional means, Trump has returned the praise. Following his victory in 2016, he invited Lindell to fulfill him in Trump Tower. Since then, the 2 have appeared collectively on the White Home and at marketing campaign occasions. In March, throughout a rally in Wisconsin, Trump praised him as “the good, legendary Mike Lindell.” Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law and the brand new cochair of the Republican Nationwide Committee, hawks MyPillow merchandise on her podcast, “The Proper View.”
However no quantity of reward could make up for the losses Lindell, now 62, has endured for his favourite president. In a defamation go well with introduced by the voting-machine agency Dominion Voting Techniques, Lindell and MyPillow have been discovered answerable for a staggering $1.3 billion in damages, which far exceeds his web price. Lindell’s legal professionals have since stop, as a result of, they are saying, he has not paid them. One other defamation case introduced by the voting-machine agency Smartmatic is ongoing. Not too long ago, Lindell claimed he had simply $10,000 left to his title.
Once I spoke to Lindell, he balked once I requested if he regrets his resolution to wage a one-man campaign in opposition to digital voting machines. “Do I remorse spending $40 million attempting to avoid wasting our nation to eliminate these computer systems?” he boomed. “No!” He repeatedly disparaged Zeidman as “not a cyber professional,” which is patently unfaithful. “It was all contrived,” he stated of Zeidman’s report. “No matter their plan is, whoever he is working with — it is disgusting what he is attempting to do.”
Jared Bartman for BI
Underneath deposition within the arbitration proceedings over his refusal to pay Zeidman, Lindell was a twister of evasion and contradiction. He claimed, confusingly, that the 23 gigabytes of knowledge he bragged about on the Cyber Symposium weren’t truly meant to show election interference; they have been solely “associated,” in some unspecified vogue, to the 2020 election. Furthermore, he stated, he couldn’t make public the components of the information trove that do show election interference for causes of “nationwide safety.” With a Trumpian redirect, Lindell assured Zeidman’s lawyer, Brian Glasser, that he had far extra surprising proof in hand — however he was being blocked from releasing it by a “authorities gag order” issued by a choose in Nevada.
“It is the identical information we’re speaking about because it pertains to the Cyber Symposium?” Glasser pressed.
“No,” Lindell stated. “I believe it goes quite a bit deeper than that.” The explosive proof, he implied, would show that Zeidman was mistaken: The election was stolen. “Dennis Montgomery has much more than simply that information,” Lindell insisted.
Later, Zeidman’s legal professionals tracked down the case Lindell was referring to. No one, it turned out, was stopping Lindell from releasing any information. The so-called “gag order” was issued in 2007 as a part of a contract dispute between Montgomery and eTreppid Applied sciences (the corporate Montgomery ran that had defrauded the federal government), regarding authorities contracts and associated “commerce secrets and techniques.” Lindell had filed a movement to take away the order, arguing that he in some way wanted to launch the information to defend himself in his unrelated defamation instances. The courtroom denied his request, saying the order did not apply to him. “Lindell supplies nothing greater than hypothesis,” the courtroom wrote, “that he’ll in some way be precluded from presenting this info due to the protecting order on this litigation.” In December 2022, Lindell stated he would launch the information inside 60 days. He by no means did so.
Zeidman pities Lindell for what he sees as his honest conspiratorial convictions. “Some folks imagine the world’s out to get them as a result of they assume they’re doing all the things rationally however the world shouldn’t be performing rationally in response, when actually it is the opposite means round,” he stated. “I believe that is the way in which Lindell is. He is offended as a result of he would not perceive why folks do not imagine him. In his thoughts, folks irrationally hate him for telling the reality.”
In Vegas, Zeidman drove me to The Venetian for lunch, the place he had a poker event later that afternoon. On the way in which, he gestured towards the Trump Worldwide Lodge, towering over Sin Metropolis like a large golden Zippo. Lengthy earlier than Trump ran for workplace, Zeidman had adopted his enterprise ventures with bewilderment.
“He would run his companies into the bottom but in some way make a windfall revenue and get traders to put money into his subsequent venture,” he stated. “I am pondering, do not they have a look at the data and see that folks have gotten burned by him? Why would they put money into his subsequent venture? How can he speak them into that?”
But for all his issues with Trump, Zeidman sees the incumbent as no much less deceitful. “Biden is the Democrats’ model of Trump,” he stated. “He is a liar. He is uncouth. He says silly issues and insults folks.” This equivalency struck me as an exaggeration of Lindellian proportions. However Zeidman stood by it.
In all chance, he stated, he’ll be voting for Trump come November. “I do not wish to vote for Trump as a result of he is scary, however I can not vote for Biden,” he stated. “For me, the choice is: Biden’s insurance policies have made America weaker and Trump’s insurance policies made it stronger.”
On the way in which to The Venetian, Zeidman stopped by his financial institution to retrieve money for the event buy-in (“This one is $800, which is comparatively low cost”). He was already strategizing. “The best way to win a poker event is to outlive till later within the event,” he defined. “It would not actually matter what number of chips you have got, as a result of later within the event, the blinds — the minimal bets — are so massive that one hand can flip all the things.”
What worries Zeidman most is not election interference. It’s the perilous state of the nation these elections have produced: woke lunacy, border instability, and rising antisemitism.
On the on line casino, a whole bunch of gamers sat silently at small tables in a windowless poker site. The trade of chips crackled by way of the stale air just like the snapping shrimp of coral reefs. Zeidman competed till 2 a.m. The subsequent day, he got here in tenth out of 330 gamers, incomes a $1,000 revenue.
“I used to be completely happy,” he informed me. “However the massive cash is actually on the prime.”
It’s unlikely that Zeidman will see his $5 million from Lindell. Lindell is interesting the binding arbitration ruling in federal courtroom. In March, his legal professionals subpoenaed data of Lindell’s monetary belongings, however Lindell’s new lawyer has been sluggish to reply. Zeidman suspects that Lindell will attempt to switch his belongings out of his firm, Lindell Administration, which, legally talking, is the offending social gathering of their dispute. After we spoke, Lindell wished to make that distinction clear. “This is not in opposition to me,” he stated. “This was in opposition to Lindell Administration, a administration firm that managed that occasion and different occasions. You recognize that, proper?”
Nonetheless, Zeidman is glad to have Confirmed Mike Mistaken. He had performed his half in disseminating an essential reality. “I believe most Republicans do not imagine Lindell now, and perhaps I had an element in that,” he informed me. Then he added: “However they nonetheless imagine the election was stolen by way of poll harvesting” — permitting political campaigns to gather and submit absentee ballots on behalf of voters — “and issues like that.”
I requested the apparent follow-up: Does Zeidman imagine this unbelievable declare, which quite a few research, students, legislatures, and judges have totally disproven?
He is not positive. “I do not know if issues would have been totally different if we did not have all of the poll harvesting and mail-in ballots,” he stated. “I simply do not know.”
An inveterate engineer, Zeidman avoids an excessive amount of hypothesis. He prefers the exhausting certainty of numbers: differentiating complicated code, investigating algorithms, analyzing technical patents. These are the abilities he used to debunk Lindell’s information. What Zeidman is positive about, and what worries him most, is not election interference. It’s the perilous state of the nation that these elections, as he sees it, have produced: woke lunacy, border instability, unrestrained crime, and rising antisemitism. Trump, he concedes, is not any paragon of order. But when the previous president can mend all of that, then maybe he’s the one logical selection. A man like Bob Zeidman seems at America and wonders: The place did all of the rational folks go?
Brent Crane is a reporter primarily based in San Diego. His work may be discovered at www.brent-crane.com and @bcamcrane on X. Â
