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MyPillow guy suing for report he dated Jane Krakowski: 'They have damaged my integrity as a Christian'
January 22, 2021
Controversial MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is worried that a story in a British tabloid for harming his reputation even as companies shun his pillows following his role in pushing the election fraud conspiracy theories that incited the January 6th insurrection by Trump supporters.
Lindell has hired celebrity attorney Charles Harder to sue the Daily Mail over a report he had a secret affair with actress Jane Krakowski.
<p><span></span>"Charles Harder is the attorney," Lindell <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/mypillow-ceo-mike-lindell-hires-charles-harder-to-go-after-daily-mail-for-jane-krakowski-affair-story" target="_blank">told</a> The Daily Beast. "I never met this lady in my life and have never been to West Village and the Hamptons, where they said I was in the hit piece."</p><p>"They've done so much damage to my reputation… I'm not just going for a demand letter or a retraction, I want to go after them with a lawsuit because they have damaged my integrity as a Christian and my network to help addicts everywhere," Lindell said.</p><p>Lindell also explained his belief the story was a "hit job" because he keeps pushing lies about election fraud.</p><p>The Beast reminded of Harder's background.</p><p>"The <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/gawker-killing-lawyer-charles-harder-fails-to-kill-techdirt" target="_blank">Gawker-killing attorney</a>, who has represented everyone from now-former President Donald Trump to professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, has established himself as a go-to attorney for aggrieved celebrities looking to take on news outlets. In 2017, Harder <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/melania-trump-settles-lawsuits-with-daily-mail/2017/04/12/e6214032-1f91-11e7-be2a-3a1fb24d4671_story.html" target="_blank">helped</a> wrestle a settlement and payment for Melania Trump from the <em>Daily Mail</em>, which was forced to retract and apologize for an article claiming she had once been an escort," The Beast reported.</p>
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7a77491b5e09dadb6343a28fcdc79836" id="3ac67"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1352766592334102528"><div style="margin:1em 0">New tonight:
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell hires Gawker-killing Trump lawyer Charles Harder to go after the Daily Mail… https://t.co/hyPpAlfsIE</div> — Asawin Suebsaeng (@Asawin Suebsaeng)<a href="https://twitter.com/swin24/statuses/1352766592334102528">1611359663.0</a></blockquote></div>
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Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced on Friday that there would be an almost two week pause before the start of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial following a request from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced earlier on Friday that the House of Representatives would transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate on Monday.
<p>In a floor speech, Schumer announced that the single count of impeachment -- for inciting insurrection -- would be read into the record on Monday evening.</p><p>On Tuesday, Senators will be sworn into the Court of Impeachment, but the trial presentations will then pause until the week of February 8th.</p><p>"Leader McConnell is glad that Leader Schumer agreed to Republicans' request for additional time during the pre-trial phase," McConnell's office said in a statement.</p>
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1032938b5c569235032addb1a52fea04" id="f6463"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1352757524655730695"><div style="margin:1em 0">Schumer from Senate flr announced timing for 2nd impeachment trial for Donald Trump:
Mon 7pm: House mgrs read impea… https://t.co/DGUDHxPGWv</div> — Craig Caplan (@Craig Caplan)<a href="https://twitter.com/CraigCaplan/statuses/1352757524655730695">1611357501.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p><br/></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">.<a href="https://twitter.com/DougAndres?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DougAndres</a>, spox for McConnell, said in a statement, "Leader McConnell is glad that Leader Schumer agreed to Republicans' request for additional time during the pre-trial phase." He later added that "This is a win for due process and fairness." <a href="https://t.co/cNofWmbNFD">pic.twitter.com/cNofWmbNFD</a><br/>— Jack Turman III (@jackturmanIII) <a href="https://twitter.com/jackturmanIII/status/1352759115345489923?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 22, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div><p><br/></p>
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Even New York Times columnist David Brooks—widely reviled over many years for his "wrongheaded and naive" brand of right-wing commentary—agreed Friday with the many progressive voices arguing that Democrats will ultimately be justified in abolishing the legislative filibuster in the U.S. Senate if Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell continues his obstructionist ways.
In his latest column—titled the "The Case for Biden Optimism"—Brooks contends that if current efforts to forge a bipartisan power-sharing agreement fail, efforts to pass a comprehensive Covid-19 economic relief package put forth by President Joe Biden are stymied, and "Republicans go into full obstruction mode" then the Democrats, led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, "should absolutely kill the filibuster."
<p>
While progressives have been
<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/17/jim-crow-relic-must-be-abolished-demand-end-filibuster-grows" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">making this argument intensely</a> for weeks, if not months, many were caught off guard by Brooks' endorsement.
</p><p>
"Can't believe David Brooks and I finally agree on a thing,"
<a href="https://twitter.com/WaywardWinifred/status/1352650715848732676" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said</a> Winnie Wong, former top aide to the 2020 Bernie Sanders campaign, in response to the column.
</p><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" class="" data-tweet-id="1352627782908567554" frameborder="0" id="twitter-widget-0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1352627782908567554&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2650071971%23publish&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 422px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet">
</iframe>
</div><p>
"Kill the filibuster. Today. Now," <a href="https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1352657553826607109" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said</a> former secretary of labor Robert Reich in a tweet directed at Schumer. "Hell, even David Brooks agrees."
</p><p>
As columnist Ryan Cooper <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/962414/mcconnell-already-moving-strangle-biden-presidency" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">wrote</a> for <em>The Week</em> on Thursday: "[McConnell] is demanding Democrats preserve his ability to block anything they propose with the Senate filibuster, so he can ruin the country and blame it on them, and he is gambling that moderate Democratic senators will be too scared to call his bluff. Democrats should tell McConnell to go pound sand, and nuke the filibuster right now."
</p><p>
Cooper explained:
</p><blockquote>
Recall that the filibuster allows just 41 senators to block most legislation. Activists have begged Democrats to get rid of the filibuster after witnessing McConnell use it to shamelessly obstruct Democratic priorities and then immediately remove it as an obstacle to his own chief priority, confirming right-wing Supreme Court Justices. Yet so far a crucial segment of moderate Democratic senators have resisted, for reasons of "tradition," or worries it will force them to take difficult votes, or simple timidity. Now McConnell has broken yet another Senate norm by <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/21/democrats-mcconnell-filibuster-460967" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">threatening to filibuster</a> the Organizing Resolution unless Democrats agree to keep the legislative filibuster for the next two years. To the best of my knowledge, filibustering the initial organizational rule package in a new Congress has never happened before. (Incidentally, since the Senate will continue to operate under its current rules, that leaves Republicans in charge of the committees so long as it is not passed.)<br/>
If Democrats agree, given McConnell's history, he is virtually guaranteed to not allow any normal legislation through, and to drag out the confirmation of any appointee as long as possible. The only way to pass any law will be through the cumbersome and limited reconciliation process. Just as he did under President [Barack] Obama, McConnell wants to throw sand in the gears of government, prevent Biden from accomplishing anything, blame Democrats for the resulting dysfunction, and take back full control of the Senate in two years.</blockquote><p>
In response to McConnell's request to keep the filibuster in place, Schumer on the Senate floor Friday morning said the proposal "is unacceptable, and it won't be accepted. And the Republican leader knew that when he first proposed it."
</p><p>
In a statement on Thursday, Mairead Lynn, a spokesperson for the watchdog group Accountable.US, also suggested that Schumer should not tolerate McConnell's obstruction for one minute longer and called out the Republican leader's objections to the organizing agreement in the Senate thus far as clearly made in bad faith.
</p><p>
"If McConnell wanted to work with Democrats in good faith," said Lynn, "he would have spent the last two months moving President Biden's Cabinet nominees through the confirmation process—a precedent afforded to every previous president."
</p><p>
McConnell's "unprecedented" and "outsized" demands that would neutralize Democratic control over the Senate, added Lynn, "are nothing more than a last-ditch effort to further obstruct the Biden administration from implementing the will of the people. Enough is enough: McConnell needs to drop his unreasonable demands and let the Senate get to work."
</p><p>
On Thursday, Ezra Klein, Brooks' liberal colleague at the <em>Times</em>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/opinion/biden-inauguration-democrats.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">argued</a> that none of the far-reaching bills that Democrats have vowed to pass will be possible in "a Senate in which the filibuster forces 60-vote supermajorities on routine legislation."
</p><p>
Democrats, wrote Klein, "have plenty of ideas that could improve people's lives and strengthen democracy. But they have, repeatedly, proved themselves more committed to preserving the status quo of the political system than fulfilling their promises to voters. They have preferred the false peace of decorum to the true progress of democracy. If they choose that path again, they will lose their majority in 2022, and they will deserve it."
</p><p>
According to Klein, Biden's "agenda will live or die in the Senate"—and if proper action is not taken, he continued, "odds are it will die, killed by the filibuster."
</p><p>
This is exactly why progressive critics have urged Democrats to immediately end the charade orchestrated by McConnell.
</p><p>
In a series of tweets Thursday, Ezra Levin, co-founder of the progressive advocacy group Indivisible, <a href="https://twitter.com/ezralevin/status/1352328111162093568" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said</a> his read on the situation was this: "McConnell wants to block popular bills this Congress—stuff like D.C. statehood and H.R. 1. He doesn't want to have the filibuster fight with that backdrop, so instead he's picking the fight on a boring-sounding procedure thing hoping it's more favorable ground for him."
</p><p>
"To be clear," he added: "Senate Dems have no reason or need to give into McConnell's BS. It would be a colossal mistake of historic proportions for them to give in. And I don't think they will here."
</p><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" class="" data-tweet-id="1352344411590561797" frameborder="0" id="twitter-widget-1" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1352344411590561797&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2650071971%23publish&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 456px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe></div><p>And as Levin put it on Friday in a <a href="https://twitter.com/ezralevin/status/1352655220266905606" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">tweet</a> linking to Brooks' column: "Killing the Jim Crow filibuster is the institutionalist, pro-democracy position."</p> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
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