Jan. 6 (UPI) — The select committee investigating last year’s Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol building has subpoenaed the phone records of Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow and an ally to former President Donald Trump.
The revelation was revealed in a court filing Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota by Lindell seeking invalidation of the subpoena, saying enforcement of it violates his rights to “freedom of religion, speech, press, political expression and to associate with others to advance their shared beliefs.”
The select committee has been investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol building by Trump’s supporters who sought to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. During the siege, five people were killed, some 140 law enforcement were injured and the building sustained more than $1.4 million in damages.
Lindell, a staunch supporter of Trump, has promoted the false claims that the 2020 general election was plagued by irregularities, specifically concerning voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems.
He also spoke during a mid-December 2020 pro-Trump rally, challenging the election results that the committee has been probing in connection to the attack on Congress the following month.
As part of its investigation, the committee has asked Verizon to produce all records from Nov. 1, 2020, to Jan. 31, 2021, associated with a cellphone belonging to Lindell, according to the document.
In the filing Wednesday, Lindell’s lawyers said their client’s continued activities concerning the election are in part motivated “by his strongly held religious beliefs” and compelling disclosure of his religious and political activities violates his rights.
They also say that revealing the communications would make public associations that Lindell has intentionally kept confidential “out of fear that they will suffer retaliation, harassment and loss.”
Lindell also argues the subpoena is too broad and requests documents after Jan. 6, 2021, which he says have “no reasonable relation” to the scope of the committee.
“Mr. Lindell had no involvement whatsoever in the events that occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” the filing states. “The select committee and the individual defendants have no authority to require the identification and production … of private communications with no reasonable nexus to the authorized scope the select committee’s investigation.”
His lawyers called the subpoena “a veiled effort to conduct an unauthorized criminal investigation.”
If the injunctive relief is not granted, Lindell’s lawyers ask the court to grant their client the ability to review the information sought prior to Verizon handing it over to the committee in order to ascertain if any communications are protected by attorney-client privilege.
The nine-member bipartisan committee has subpoenaed a number of people as part of its investigation, including other close allies to Trump, such as his former advisor Stephen Bannon and his former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
On Wednesday, it was revealed in court documents that the committee had subpoenaed the phone records of radio host and Trump ally Sebastian Gorka.
Gorka, like Lindell, has asked the court to invalidate the subpoena, calling it an abuse of congressional power by his political adversaries “to intimidate and stifle his political speech.”
“The select committee’s aimless rifling through the communications records of an adverse political journalist whom it knows had no role in the events it claims to be investigating epitomizes an investigation run amok,” his lawyers wrote.
