Commentary by Stephen Macaulay
While there is attention — including in this space — on the unsubstantiated claims about the 2020 election from Donald Trump in his televised address, there is something that also happened on July 16 that goes to the point of the man not having a clear grasp of what makes America great, and that’s not putting fraudsters in office.
Trump endorsed Mike Lindell, a.k.a., the MyPillow Guy, for the governorship of Minnesota.
As you may recall, Lindell is an election denier. He made false claims about the election equipment produced by Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic over Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in 2020.
Lindell learned that you just can’t wave your arms and make false claims.
Dominion sued him in a $1.3 billion defamation case. There was a confidential settlement and the case was settled. You can’t be certain that (1) if Lindell had the goods on the company he wouldn’t have settled and (2) Dominion likely settled for a nontrivial amount of money.
Then there was a former Dominion executive, Eric Coomer, who sued Lindell for personal defamation. A jury found that was indeed the case and Lindell was ordered to pay Coomer $2.3 million. Not E. Jean Carroll money — there is the $5.6 million Trump paid to her and another $83.3 million judgment in her favor still being appealed — but a lot.
In the Smartmatic case Lindell had a summary judgment against him. While the amount he’ll pay hasn’t been announced, he does owe some $95,000 to Smartmatic for legal fees as well as for civil contempt — and the number goes up by $500 per day until he pays off the debt.
Yes, this is the sort of individual whom Donald Trump believes would make a good leader.
Trump’s claims can be considered in the same context.
Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.
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