Supreme Court won’t hear election denier Mike Lindell’s challenge over FBI seizure of cellphone

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a petition by MyPillow founder and election denier Mike Lindell to consider his challenge to the legality of the FBI’s seizure of his cellphone at a restaurant drive-through.

The high court, without comment Monday, declined to reconsider three lower court rulings that went against Lindell, a prominent promoter of false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the 2020 presidential election from President Donald Trump.

FBI agents seized the cellphone from him at a Hardee’s fast-food restaurant in the southern Minnesota city of Mankato in 2022 as part of an investigation into an alleged scheme to breach voting system technology in Mesa County, Colorado. Lindell alleged the confiscation violated his constitutional rights against unlawful search and seizure and was an attempt by the government to chill his freedom of speech.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed.

“While he has at times attempted to assert otherwise, Lindell’s objective in this action is apparent — this litigation is a tactic to, at a minimum, interfere with and, at most, enjoin a criminal investigation and ultimately hamper any potential federal prosecution,” a three-judge appeals panel wrote last September.

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