MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said he shared with President Trump and White House lawyers a document advising him to replace Central Intelligence Agency Director Gina Haspel but said he was just delivering a message from an attorney.
Lindell was photographed holding a document that said, “Move Kash Patel to acting CIA,” referring to a Trump Pentagon official and former aide to House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, after meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Friday.
He said Trump read the document before returning it to him. Lindell met with Trump and an aide for about 10 minutes in the Oval Office. The meeting was arranged on Thursday and did not appear on Trump’s public schedule.
“I was the messenger on that,” Lindell told the Washington Examiner, adding that he was “delivering recommendations from an attorney.”
A partial picture of the document is circulating online, which appears to advise using “martial law if necessary.” Lindell denies this appears on the page. Pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell is also mentioned.
According to a New York Times reporter, an administration official said the document “definitely referenced martial law.” This reporter said the official who met with Lindell and Trump was Robert O’Brien, Trump’s national security adviser, and that the notes called for O’Brien to be replaced as well as the firing of White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who led Trump’s impeachment defense last year.
“I didn’t write that. That was an attorney,” Lindell told the Washington Examiner of the guidance shared in the memo. “I was just a messenger. And I just delivered that.”
@MyPillowUSA CEO Michael Lindell shows off his notes before going into the West Wing at the White House on Friday, Jan 15, 2021 in Washington, DC. pic.twitter.com/AY6AyJNSyE
— Jabin Botsford (@jabinbotsford) January 15, 2021
Lindell said he has not been contact with the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and before Friday has not talked to Trump since two weeks before the Nov. 3 election.
After meeting with Trump, Lindell told the Washington Examiner that he was ushered upstairs to share details of election fraud with three additional people, including at least one White House lawyer. He was then told he would not be meeting with Trump again, as he had believed he would.
Trump is holding back-to-back meetings, he explained.
“Here’s the deal: More than 80 million people believe the election was the result of fraud,” Lindell said.
The lawyers said they had looked into the claims, Lindell said. He described the officials as “very dismissive.”
He added, “They have their own agenda.”
Lindell insisted on meeting with Cipollone once up there, according to the New York Times.
On Friday, Lindell shared a video on social media claiming that Trump would serve four more years in office.
“Keep the faith everyone! We will have our president Donald Trump 4 more years!” Lindell wrote on the post.
Trump committed to an “orderly” transition of power last week after a mob of pro-Trump protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol, but he is not expected to attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday.
Lindell is a staunch Trump supporter who has backed the president’s efforts to overturn the results of the general election based on voter fraud claims that have been rejected by courts and denied by the Justice Department.
A pool report on Friday suggested Trump had not been in the Oval Office prior to Lindell’s 3 p.m. visit. Typically, a Marine stands guard outside the entrance to the West Wing when Trump is in the office. The Marine escorted Lindell inside at about 3:05 p.m.
