‘Of Course I’m Going to Testify’: Mike Lindell’s Defamation Trial Is Going to Be Wild

“I’m going to tes­ti­fy!” Mike Lin­dell, the MyP­il­low CEO and staunch Don­ald Trump ally, tells Rolling Stone. “Of course I’m gonna tes­ti­fy at my own tri­al! … I have noth­ing to hide. I am a for­mer crack addict, I’ve always been open about that. I’ve always been open about every­thing! I’m as trans­par­ent as they come … So I have noth­ing to hide at this tri­al.”

MyP­il­low CEO and out­spo­ken Trump sup­port­er Mike Lin­dell is prepar­ing to take the stand in a high-pro­file defama­tion tri­al set to begin in ear­ly June at a fed­er­al cour­t­house. Speak­ing from the Den­ver area, Lin­dell shared some of his plans for his court appear­ance and what he per­son­al­ly intends to present to both the judge and jury.

Lin­dell, a fre­quent adver­tis­er on Fox News and a cen­tral fig­ure in push­ing false claims about the 2020 elec­tion, has long pro­mot­ed the debunked the­o­ry that vot­ing machines were rigged to favor Joe Biden. His focus on Domin­ion Vot­ing Systems—and more specif­i­cal­ly, a for­mer employ­ee of the company—has land­ed him in legal hot water.

The upcom­ing tri­al was sparked by a 2022 law­suit filed by Eric Coomer, a for­mer Domin­ion exec­u­tive. Coomer alleges that Lin­dell false­ly accused him of help­ing rig the elec­tion against Don­ald Trump, even claim­ing Coomer took part in an imag­i­nary “Antifa con­fer­ence call” to plot elec­tion inter­fer­ence.

The lead-up to the tri­al has been chaot­ic. Lindell’s legal team recent­ly admit­ted to using gen­er­a­tive AI to draft legal filings—filings which the judge crit­i­cized for cit­ing non-exis­tent court cas­es and con­tain­ing numer­ous errors.

As the tri­al approach­es, all eyes are on what Lin­dell will say under oath—and whether his court­room defense will stand up to scruti­ny.

Mike Lin­dell has made it clear: he plans to tes­ti­fy at his upcom­ing defama­tion trial—and he believes it’s his duty to do so. “I didn’t go into this hap­haz­ard­ly. I want to help this coun­try,” he told Rolling Stone. “I want these machines gone!”

Lin­dell has con­sis­tent­ly denied any wrong­do­ing relat­ed to his elec­tion claims. His deci­sion to take the stand, how­ev­er, goes against the typ­i­cal advice defense attor­neys often give—especially to high-pro­file or con­tro­ver­sial fig­ures.

In many cas­es, legal teams cau­tion clients against tes­ti­fy­ing under oath, warn­ing that it could do more harm than good. Pub­lic fig­ures with a his­to­ry of mak­ing inflam­ma­to­ry or self-incrim­i­nat­ing state­ments, whether in the media or on social plat­forms, are espe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble under cross-exam­i­na­tion.

This was the case with Don­ald Trump, whose own lawyers advised him not to tes­ti­fy dur­ing his Man­hat­tan crim­i­nal tri­al or before the House com­mit­tee inves­ti­gat­ing the Jan­u­ary 6th Capi­tol attack. In the end, Trump agreed with their strat­e­gy and stayed off the stand.

But Lin­dell appears unde­terred, fram­ing his court­room appear­ance as a patri­ot­ic ges­ture. As the tri­al begins, it remains to be seen how his tes­ti­mo­ny will play out—and whether it helps or hurts his case.

Lin­dell is tak­ing a marked­ly dif­fer­ent approach in the days lead­ing up to the tri­al. “If any attor­ney advised me not to tes­ti­fy or to take a deal, I’d tell them: Nev­er!” Lin­dell says. “I speak the truth … I’ve been in many courts in my life, and ‘don’t tes­ti­fy’ is what they tell the guilty peo­ple, in my mind.”

“I’m not going to incrim­i­nate myself! I’ve done noth­ing wrong,” he adds. “Do you think I want to make a deal? I’ll spend every dime I have to save this coun­try and I’ll bor­row mon­ey if I have to.”

“The biggest thing I plan to say on the stand is that I did­n’t know who this guy [Eric Coomer] was — so why are you pick­ing on MyP­il­low and Mike Lin­dell? What did I ever do to him? I did­n’t even know who the guy was!” Lin­dell says, adding that he wants to go on the offen­sive and explain how much Coomer’s defama­tion law­suit against News­max and the right-wing net­work’s sub­se­quent set­tle­ment hurt his com­pa­ny:

“Those num­bers don’t lie, and I plan to show them in court, and show what he did to MyP­il­low, or my lawyers might do it … Eric Coomer’s set­tle­ment with News­max has cost MyP­il­low in sales over $20 mil­lion dol­lars because News­max will nev­er have me on to talk about MyP­il­low prod­ucts any­more! … I’m going in there [to tes­ti­fy] to help save our coun­try, and help get rid of these elec­tron­ic vot­ing machines. I got vocal cord surgery a month ago. In 2016, I had my first surgery, and I could­n’t talk for 45 days straight. … But I’m not gonna stop talk­ing.”

Mike Lindell’s upcom­ing tes­ti­mo­ny in his defama­tion tri­al isn’t just headline-worthy—it’s the lat­est chap­ter in a years-long saga that has seen the MyP­il­low CEO talk him­self into mount­ing legal and finan­cial trou­ble.

Back in 2021, Lin­dell went on Tuck­er Carl­son Tonight—then one of Fox News’ most-watched programs—and claimed to have sol­id proof that Domin­ion Vot­ing Sys­tems helped steal the 2020 elec­tion from Don­ald Trump. “I dare Domin­ion to sue me,” he said on air. “Because then it will get out faster.” Days lat­er, Domin­ion did exact­ly that.

But Domin­ion was­n’t the only com­pa­ny tak­ing legal action. In 2022, Smart­mat­ic, anoth­er vot­ing tech­nol­o­gy firm, filed a sep­a­rate defama­tion suit against Lin­dell. That same year, the FBI seized his phone while he was at a Hardee’s in Min­neso­ta, report­ed­ly as part of an inves­ti­ga­tion tied to efforts to over­turn the elec­tion. Despite the grow­ing pile of law­suits, Lin­dell didn’t slow down—continuing to ampli­fy con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries on var­i­ous plat­forms.

By 2023, the pres­sure start­ed to close in. Lindell’s own attor­neys quit one of his legal cas­es, cit­ing mil­lions in unpaid legal fees. He admit­ted that MyP­il­low, the com­pa­ny fund­ing much of his polit­i­cal cru­sade, was on the verge of col­lapse under the finan­cial strain. Still, he pressed for­ward, insist­ing he was fight­ing for the truth.

Ear­li­er this year, the fall­out deep­ened. A Min­neso­ta judge found Lin­dell in con­tempt of court for fail­ing to pro­vide dis­cov­ery mate­ri­als in the Smart­mat­ic case. Appear­ing before the court, he broke down in tears. “I bor­rowed every­thing I can. Nobody will lend me any mon­ey any­more,” he told the judge. “I can’t turn back time […] but I will tell you, I don’t have any mon­ey.”

Now, with the defama­tion tri­al brought by for­mer Domin­ion employ­ee Eric Coomer set to begin this June, all eyes are on Lin­dell. Despite every­thing, he insists he will testify—and turn the court­room into his own stage.

Whether that bold move helps or hurts his case remains to be seen. But one thing is cer­tain: if Mike Lin­dell shows up on the stand, it won’t be qui­et.

“I will nev­er stop until we go back to paper bal­lots,” he insists. “I’m gonna be there every day. … I believe it’s one of the most impor­tant cas­es in his­to­ry. … I’ll be there every minute of every day until the last minute of the tri­al! … I’m going to list every sin­gle [expert I’ve talked to] on the stand.”

Lin­dell adds: “Ask me if I have any mon­ey left? No, I don’t! I have no mon­ey left. I keep bor­row­ing to keep going” in his bat­tle against the “deep-state glob­al­ists” and “trai­tors” and “uni­par­ty Repub­li­cans.”

George Con­way, a for­mer fix­ture of the con­ser­v­a­tive legal elite who emerged as a stri­dent MAGA crit­ic dur­ing Trump’s first term, does­n’t think it’s such a good idea for Lin­dell to tes­ti­fy: “If there were an insan­i­ty defense to defama­tion, sure, I’d put him on the stand,” he says. “But apart from that, I prob­a­bly would­n’t want him any­where near the court­room.”