Law&Crime Sidebar - Alan Dershowitz Explains Why He’s Suing DOJ on Behalf of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz joins the Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy to discuss Lindell’s lawsuit against the FBI and DOJ.GUESTS:Alan Dershowitz: https://twitter.com/AlanDershLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael Deininger Guest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. I mean, this is where we're at in our country, and I'll tell you, I am not stopping Steve until they're stopped. That's My Pillow CEO, Mike Lindell, talking to former Trump advisor Steve Bannon about the FBI seizing his cell phone. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and welcome to Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. Now, Lindell has been an outspoken critic of the 2020 election and the results. And he's basically said that voting machines gave false results for the election, handing it over to now President Biden.

Smartmatic and Dominion voting systems are suing Lindell over his voter fraud claims. And now Lindel is also suing. the Department of Justice and Attorney General Merrick Garland to stop the FBI from searching his phone that was seized just recently by federal agents. Joining me to discuss this is Alan Dershowitz. He is one of Lindell's lawyers. He is also a professor emeritus at Harvard University and the author of the new book, The Price of Principle, Why Integrity is Worth the Consequences. Professor Dershowitz, welcome to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Well, thank you. First of all, let me tell you why I'm representing Michael Lindell. I agree with him about very little. I think the election was fair.

I think he's wrong in challenging the election. We're on completely different sides. I'm a liberal Democrat. I voted for Biden. He's a conservative Republican. I think it's critically important for people on my side of the political fence, people who are Biden supporters, supporters of the election, to hold the Justice Department accountable for trying to target our political enemies. I think the criticism should come from within our party, not only outside the party. So I'm very anxious to defend the Constitution on behalf of Michael Lindell. The search itself was clearly a general search. The framers of the Constitution prohibited general searches of a person's whole house. Now, what could be even more intrusive than searching a whole house is searching a cell phone.

Cell phone has your life on it. It's connected to your computers. Everything about Mike Lindell is on that cell phone. And the government's application for a search warrant, we haven't seen the affidavit, but the search warrant itself doesn't specify how the government should separate out private material, privileged material from material that they may have the right to get. So we're seeking an injunction against the government perusing his cell phone. We're seeking the appointment of a special master, like in the Merrillago case, so that the Justice Department itself doesn't do the investigation to determine what's privileged, what's not. And I'm, you know, I'm proud to be representing the Fourth Amendment on behalf of Mike Lindell. I was going to ask you about the affidavit

because that's really where the meat is. That's where the government has to, for our listeners and viewers who may not know, that's where the government has to outline where they're getting this probable cause from. What is prompting them to seek the warrant and the grounds for it? And so you haven't seen that. What do you believe this is related to? Obviously, you know, the Dominion voting system company is suing him and other people, other organizations. So do you think this all goes back to January 6th or what do you think they're looking for? Well, we don't know because we haven't seen the affidavit. The statutes that were cited in the search warrant deal primarily with the Colorado issues about votes and voting.

But that's not my interest. I'm not on Lindell's side of those issues. I'm on his side because there are several problems. First, they found him hunting with his friend and stopping at a fast food place. How did they find him? Were they surveilling him electronically? If so, did they have a warrant to surveil him electronically? Do we really want the government to be able to know everywhere we are without a search warrant?

That's 1984. If they did have a search warrant, why did they detain him? Why did they have cars blocking his exit? Why didn't they initially let him call his lawyer? Why did they question him between the time that he asked to talk to his lawyers and the time that he was finally able to talk to his lawyers? There are questions under the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and the Sixth Amendment. And Democrat lawyers don't want to take these kinds of cases. That's why I, as a liberal Democrat, have to take this kind of case and hold the Democrats responsible.

My own party, it's easy for Republicans to do this. And it's easy for Democrats to criticize Republicans, but Democrats have to hold Democrats accountable when they go too far and violate the Constitution. And I see that as part of my responsibility. I know you're a big advocate of civil liberties, obviously. However, I mean, how did you get hooked up with him? I mean, did he reach out to you? Did the other lawyers involved in the case say, we really need to get Alan Dershowitz involved in this? the other lawyers reached out and they asked me to be of counsel. That is, I'm not his general lawyer. I'm a constitutional consultant. I'm an expert on the constitutional issues. And I helped to draft and revise the complaint and all of the documents relating solely to the constitutional issues. So they reached out to me. People have criticized me for taking Mike Lindell's case because they don't like his views. I don't like many of his views. I agree with some of them. I disagree with many of them. But that's not. the criteria by which constitutional lawyers ought to take cases. I've represented communists. I've represented Nazis. I've represented Palestinian who are accused of terrorism. I've represented people across the board. And I'm going to continue to do that. But I think it's particularly important today with our partisan atmosphere for Democrat liberal lawyers who support the election of Biden to be holding accountable our fellow Democrats in the Justice Department who are violating

the Constitution. So you filed this paperwork. seeking, you know, to get the phone returned. You don't want the FBI going through it, dumping the phone. So what's the next step? Obviously, the government has to respond in some fashion. Tell us what happens next. Well, Lindell filed an affidavit under oath in which he sets out the circumstances as he believes them. And the government is going to respond. They'll agree or disagree. They've already issued a public statement that he was the subject of a search warrant. Let's see what they say. Then we'll ask the judge, for a variety of relief, an injunction to return to the phone, a declaration that the search was improper, alternatively, the appointment of a special master if they don't return the phone. And we'll litigate and we'll wait and see. But Constitution comes first. And this case raises issues under the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and the Sixth Amendment. And there are important issues. And it doesn't matter whose ox is being gored. It doesn't matter, whether it's a Democrat or Republican, somebody who agree with a disagree with, the Constitution is for

everybody. Are you going to seek the unsealing of the affidavit for the search warrant? Sure. Oh, sure. That's one of the first things. We're seeking the unsealing of the affidavit. That will give us the information we need. For example, we don't know whether there was a search warrant or what the basis for surveilling him. How did they find him? We don't know the answer to that question. We need to know the answer to that question. And we will probably amend the complaint once we get the affidavit and find out what the government has, what they told the judge, what they failed to tell the judge. Remember, too, that there's a constitutional doctrine that requires the government not to withhold critical information from a judge giving a warrant. So we want to be able to investigate thoroughly the affidavit itself.

Was Mike Lindell, obviously, when his phone was seized by the FBI agents, did they provide him a copy of the warrant and the return as they're required to do? Well, they showed him the warrant. I'm not sure whether they showed him. I mean, the inventory list would be just, you know, one sentence probably, just the phone itself. But, you know, the search warrant doesn't authorize his detention. They didn't authorize him the FBI to block his entrance. And so it remains to be seen what the government told the judge in the affidavit, and until we know the answer to that question, we're not sure whether other rights may have been violated as well. We're sure that these rights were violated at the moment, particularly the issue of general search, and this is an issue for everybody.

I mean, every American has today a cell phone, and the cell phone has your life in it. You need a special warrant to get into your medicine cabinet because your medicine cabinet tells you things, secrets about your life. And if the medicine cabinet is something that gives you a right to privacy, tenfold is your cell phone. And I think every American, whether you're a liberal or a conservative, a Democrat, or Republican, pro-Michaelindel, or anti-Michaelindel, this is a case that should interest you because your cell phone is at risk. Your presence, where you are at any guy in the day, is at risk today if the government can surveil you, find you at a fast food shop and take away your cell phone without and then peruse it and look through

everything and make decisions as to what to turn over to others and what to turn back. That's not something the Justice Department should be doing. Every American should be concerned about this. But in our partisan world today, that isn't happening. If you can get Trump or get Trump supporters, then many Democrats say let the Constitution be damned. And the Republicans say the same thing. If you're going after Biden, Biden's son. And I'm neutral on these issues. I support the Constitution, not the Republicans or the Democrats. You don't agree with Mike Lindell's political stances. You don't agree with what he said, what he's done about the 2020 election. You believe it was a legitimate election. So this is all about his rights. I mean, had he been, had the FBI been in touch with him before this at all asking to question him or anything like that? As far as I know they haven't, they didn't ask him to turn over the phone. What they should have done is subpoenaed the phone.

Then he could go to court and say, all right, you're on arm. I'm only going to turn over the phone if all they look at is A, B, and C. That's why a subpoena is much better. Even Garland said in a press conference that the Justice Department should be using less intrusive methods. From what we know, they issued a subpoena in this case, at the same day they issued the search warrant, but they didn't ask for the phone on the subpoena. They should have asked for the phone on the subpoena if they thought it had relevant information. And then the judge could make decisions, maybe appoint the special master, maybe not.

But those are issues that should have been considered rather than the search warrant, a detention, and blocking access, asking him questions. That's just too intrusive. Professor Emeritus from Harvard University, Alan Dershowitz, also now of counsel from Mike Lindell, the CEO of My Pillow. An author, as we said, of the price of principle, why integrity is worth the consequences. Thanks so much for coming on to talk with us about it. We appreciate it. My pleasure.

Thank you. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. Thanks so much for joining us. It is produced by Michael Dininger, Logan Harris, and Sam Goldberg. Bobby Zoki is our YouTube manager. Alyssa Fisher handles our bookings. And Kiera Bronson does our social media. You can find Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast.

And of course, you can watch it. on the Law and Crime Trial Network and on the Law and Crime YouTube page. I'm Ann Janette Levy. Thanks again for joining us, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus.

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