Trump ally Mike Lindell of My Pillow pushes martial law at White House
- Photographer snaps pictures of notes near West Wing
- Visible words include ‘Move Kash Patel to CIA Acting’
My Pillow founder and Trump supporter Mike Lindell was photographed entering the West Wing of the White House on Friday, carrying notes which seemed to advocate the imposition of martial law.
Donald Trump will be replaced as president in five days’ time, by Joe Biden. Trump continues to baselessly claim his election defeat by the Democrat was the result of electoral fraud.
The president has now said he disavows the violence he incited at the US Capitol last week when he urged a mob of his supporters to march on the building. The resulting deadly attack on the Capitol led to his second impeachment.
Amid proliferating reports of plots to kidnap and kill lawmakers, and with further demonstrations by Trump supporters reportedly planned around inauguration day, Trump remains at the White House unable to use social media and apparently estranged from many of his closest advisers.
Lindell has risen to prominence among allies urging the president on in his attempts to deny reality. On his Facebook page on Friday, the mustachioed seller of sleep aids wrote: “Keep the faith everyone! We will have our president Donald Trump 4 more years!’
Later a Washington Post photographer caught images of Lindell in which parts of notes he carried were visible. Among visible text were the words “Insurrection Act now as a result of the assault on the”, “martial law if necessary” and “Move Kash Patel to CIA Acting”.
The notes also referred to Sidney Powell, an attorney and conspiracy theorist involved in Trump campaign lawsuits meant to overturn election results in battleground states, almost all of which have been unsuccessful.
The notes seemed to advocate naming an attorney named Colon, described as “up to speed on election issues” and seemingly based at “Fort Mead”, to a national security role. A current LinkedIn page indicates that a Frank Colon is currently senior attorney-cyber operations for the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade, based at Fort Meade, Maryland.
Trump allies, among them the political dirty trickster Roger Stone, have previously advocated the imposition of martial law in the event of electoral defeat.
Kash Patel is a Trump loyalist who after the election was moved to the Department of Defense, where he has been accused of obstructing the transition to Biden.
The White House pool reporter said Lindell refused to answer questions about his visit on Friday.
Earlier, apparently in error, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani tweeted a message in which he claimed to be “working with the FBI to expose and place total blame on John and the 226 members of antifa that instigated the Capitol ‘riot’”.
It was not clear which “John” Giuliani meant. The FBI has rubbished Republican claims that leftwing groups, collectively known as “antifa”, were to blame for the attack on the Capitol. Giuliani himself addressed Trump supporters before the riot, telling them he wanted “trial by combat”.
The message Giuliani tweeted ended: “I can see what I can do with Kash, I wish I had.”
Biden has picked a senior diplomat, Bill Burns, for CIA director, replacing Gina Haspel.
CNN’s chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, said he had spoken with Lindell, who confirmed he had met briefly with Trump and was told to give his documents to White House aides. “Lindell also claimed the phrase ‘martial law’ did not appear on the document despite photos,” Acosta tweeted.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/15/mike-lindell-mypillow-trump-white-house-martial-law
Attorney in Mike Lindell martial law plan denies knowing of pro-Trump plot
- Army lawyer named in notes toted by My Pillow inventor
- White House meeting reportedly ‘brief’ and ‘contentious’
Michael Lindell at the West Wing, on Friday. Photograph: REX/ShutterstockA day after his name and location appeared in notes carried into the White House by the My Pillow founder, Mike Lindell, Frank Colon told New York magazine he was “just a government employee who does work for the army” at Fort Meade, in Maryland.
Reporter Ben Jacobs added that Colon “seemed befuddled [over] why he would be floated to the president in any senior role and said that he never met Lindell”, although he said he had “seen him on TV”.
Ads for his sleep-aiding pillows made the mustachioed Lindell a familiar figure on American screens before he emerged as a leading Trump ally and booster.
The president was this week impeached a second time, for inciting supporters to attack the US Capitol on 6 January, leaving five people dead. Trump will leave office on Wednesday, when Joe Biden becomes the 46th president. Nonetheless, Trump still has not conceded defeat in an election he claims without evidence was stolen through mass voter fraud. Lindell has insisted Trump will begin a second term.
“I get called into a lot of projects for the Pentagon,” Colon told Jacobs, formerly of the Guardian, saying such projects included the Operation Warp Speed programme for coronavirus vaccine development and delivery.
He also said it “would be odd to reach that far down” in the Department of Defense for a role like national security adviser, but also said “people know me in the Pentagon” because not many people practise cyber law.
Jacobs reported that though Colon said he did not use Twitter, an account under the name Frank Colon Esq contained messages supportive of Trump and said of Biden: “If you need the military to protect you from the people during your fraudulent inauguration the people didn’t vote for you.”
Lindell did not respond to the pool reporter at the White House on Friday, when his notes were captured by a photographer from the Washington Post. He did not comment to New York magazine.
But on Friday the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman reported that Lindell had been “carrying the notes for an attorney he’s been working with to prove the election was really won by Trump, wouldn’t say who it was. Said some of it related to reports Trump is now unable to see because he doesn’t have Twitter.”
Twitter and other platforms banned Trump after the Capitol attack, in which a police officer who confronted rioters and a supporter of the president shot by law enforcement were among those who died. Multiple arrests have been made amid reports of further pro-Trump protests before the inauguration.
Haberman said Lindell’s White House meeting was “brief” and “contentious”.
“Lindell,” she wrote, “insists the papers he was holding, which were photographed and visible, didn’t reference ‘martial law’. An administration official says they definitely referenced martial law.
“But an administration official says Trump wasn’t really entertaining what Lindell was saying. Lindell also seemed frustrated he wasn’t getting more of a hearing.”
Haberman also reported that “among the items on Lindell’s list was replacing [national security adviser Robert] O’Brien”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/16/mike-lindell-my-pillow-martial-law-donald-trump
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