Today’s winner of my periodic “Whackadoodledoo Award” is My Pillow Guy Mike Lindell. For about a month now he’s been threatening to (within the coming week) countersue Dominion Voting Machines and Smartmatics mega-billion lawsuits against him. The lawsuit seems nearly as delayed as nuclear fusion, but he promised its imminent filing yet again today. So there’s that.
Of course Mr. Whackadoodledoo assures us it will be a blockbuster. It will go to the Supreme Court, and “bring down” the entire election. In the capper to it all Lindell promises “Donald Trump will be back in office in August.” So it will definitely be fast tracked to the Supremes.
You can witness what insanity looks like for yourself here:
Tell me again how this is not a cult.
Here’s the thing about Lindell’s repeatedly promised countersuit. His lawyers, presumably real actual lawyers with legal careers to concern themselves with and all that, have to tread carefully. Rule 11 of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides for them to be sanctioned if they don’t meet pleading requirements for the rule that include:
(1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation;
(2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law;
(3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and
(4) the denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence or, if specifically so identified, are reasonably based on belief or a lack of information.
Rule 11 is kind of hammered into law students starting mostly on the first day. If the pleading includes some of the ridiculous lies Lindell has publicly stated things could elevate further to contempt of court. If Lindell repeats them in depositions, perjury and subordination of it become an issue.
All of this may explain why this lawsuit keeps having the snooze button pushed.