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- [00:00]
Charlie Sykes
Welcome back to the Bulwark YouTube. We've got another great edition of False Flag. Discussing here with Will Sommer. Thanks for sitting down with me for 10 or 15 minutes here to figure out what's going on in the world of the right wing media ecosystem.
- [00:14]
Will Sommer
Yeah, this one's hot off the presses, so I'm happy to be here.
- [00:16]
Charlie Sykes
First off, big news in the world of Pillows. Mike Lindell is being sued by a guy Mike Lindell has accused of rigging the 2020 election. What is the deal here? What, what is this Dominion esque lawsuit about, Will?
- [00:31]
Will Sommer
Yeah, so this definitely falls into the genre of, of sort of like Dominion Smartmatic voter fraud lawsuits about these conspiracy theories. In this case this week, Mike Lindell, people know from the big mustache, the former crack addiction, the Pillows, he is in on trial in Denver this week and next week for his allegations that a former Dominion employee, this guy named Eric Cooper, was involved in stealing the election. And so now Eric Coomer is suing him and MyPillow and kind of the, the Mike Lindell constellation of companies for, you know, an unspecified amount. But it's a defamation trial and I don't know, I think he's got indenture rights. I don't think Eric Coomer stole the election. So, so it, I think it's going to be a real circus.
- [01:12]
Charlie Sykes
Now this isn't the most interesting part of the story, of course. The most interesting part of the story is that Mike Lindell is texting you from the trial.
- [01:21]
Will Sommer
Yes, so, so this is sort of throughout this process, one wonders, is Mike Lindell taking this as seriously as he should? You know, we, we've seen Fox News pay a mega settlement to Dominion. You know, we've seen all of these other companies kind of flop and say, oh, you know, we surrender. But in this case, Mike Lindell is insisting the election was stolen. He gave a press conference right before the trial started and said basically, yeah, I think Satan is stealing the election. When you say who's behind it all?
- [01:50]
Charlie Sykes
Satan.
- [01:50]
Will Sommer
There's one, you know, I figured, uh, I text him and say, you know, Mike, I see Rolling Stone reported that you're gonna be testifying yourself, which is obviously very unusual. You know, are you still planning on doing that? And he said, yeah, I'm in court right now, still planning on it. You know, and he, he promises to give the Bulwark more updates as we go on. So we have a, you know, maybe a correspondent with a bit of a conflict of interest, but we do have some coverage on the Ground.
- [02:14]
Charlie Sykes
We got a man inside. We've got a man inside on the defense team. I, no, I, I, this story is fascinating to me because, you know, lawsuit that Fox News settled against Dominion for, what was the figure?
- [02:29]
Will Sommer
780 something north of 700 million.
- [02:32]
Charlie Sykes
It's hard to sue a news outlet and win like that. That's hard to do. As, as we know, as you and I know as journalists, there are lots of safe harbors and protections for journalism. First Amendment is very robust. To actually lose a lawsuit or to feel the need to settle for that amount of money suggests things have gone very badly for you, which is why it's kind of surprising that Lindell himself has not settled in some manner or another with, with these guys. Right? I mean, it's, it's this, this seems like a losing case for him.
- [03:06]
Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, I think this is a case where Mike Lindell is a true believer. I mean, he really believes the election was stolen. And you know, just to dive into this case in particular, I mean, nowadays I feel like so many conspiracy theories because of, in part because of these lawsuits. So many of the conspiracy theories we get now are so vaporous. People just say, like this shadowy cabal, I'm not going to name its members or whatever. But in this case, the origins here are very specific. This guy named Joe Altman, who's like a right wing podcaster, he said shortly after the election, well, I was listening to an antifa, Antifa conference call, okay, Those were his words. And I infiltrated it. And they said, this guy named Eric from Dominion said, we're going to steal the election.
- [03:45]
Joe Altman
I did not put Eric Coomer on that call. Eric Coomer put himself on that call. But the attacks against me about a guy that was in Dominion who said, don't worry about it, we're going to fix it ended. And the fact that his fix was, and he happened to be the one holding, same thing. J6 they happen to be there protesting peacefully. They were asked peacefully. But no, no, they impeached President Trump. They impeached him and said he incited an insurrection that they planned in August of 2020.
- [04:18]
Will Sommer
And then, so afterwards, he deduces that this must be Eric Coomer, who's a real Dominion employee. Now, does Joe Altman have any proof this conference call ever happened? Does he have a recording, anything like that? Absolutely not. But nevertheless, Mike Lindell amplifies these claims and Eric Kumar really becomes this villainized character for the far right. And so, so that's what he's Suing over. And so it's such a sort of a shaggy dog story, says such an obvious fake. Fake. It's sort of a hoax. And nevertheless, Mike Lindell now finds himself in court over it.
- [04:49]
Charlie Sykes
And I think it's worth. I think it's worth emphasizing that this is like, it's not just Dominion suing. Suing Fox News because Dominion's business model was hurt because of the lies of Fox News. We're talking about a real guy who undoubtedly suffered harassment and that sort of thing because it was signal singled out by Mike Lindell and his band of lunatics.
- [05:11]
Will Sommer
Exactly. I mean, this is a sort of a thing we've seen over and over. I mean, if you. Let's take a look at Pizzagate or the case of Ray EPPS, who's a January 6th, and people became convinced on the right that he was, like, a provocateur, or in Eric Coomer's case, where people just sort of end up in these conspiracy theory Tumblrs and see their lives destroyed because there was, like, a stray video or a claim on a podcast that. That then kind of blows up into this whole nightmare situation.
- [05:36]
Charlie Sykes
That's wild. Anyway, make sure to keep us updated on the case. Make sure to forward the text messages along to the slack. We would love to read what Mike Lindell.
- [05:47]
Will Sommer
Well, you know, one thing that came up at the voir d' or, so the jury selection, they said, you know, do you own any MyPillows? And the MyPillow, the Mike Lindell TV network, such as it is, is they're very breathlessly covering this. And they said, you know, it's understandable these jurors would own my pillows. They're such fabulous products. You know, is it fair to kick them off the jury because of that? So, you know, they're always doing kind of the E Commerce sell as well. So maybe Mike Lindell can make back the judgment money here.
- [06:16]
Charlie Sykes
Well, fingers crossed for Mike. I'm really, really rooting for him in this one. No, I'm not. Joke. That's a joke, everybody. All right, let's shift gears to the back half of your newsletter, in which we learn that J6 has a partner. J6 is, of course, the. The events on January 6th when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and wanted to lynch Mike Pence in order to get the election overturned. But there is also a J13. What is. What is J13? Well, how have I not heard about J13?
- [06:50]
Will Sommer
Yeah, J13 is definitely a funny one. I mean, so the. The right. I think has felt very frustrated the that the Trump assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, did it. I mean, obviously it got a lot of attention, but that there wasn't like a deep state plot or something that they could really latch onto. I mean, I remember, like, for a few months afterwards, they were saying, you know, oh, why hasn't this gotten more attention? We can't, like mine enough grievance from this. And so lately I've noticed that the Trump allies have started saying J13 sort of as though we all know this phrase as sort of their version of January 6th, and they'll reference the truth behind J13. And in this case, they mean the Butler assassination attempt on July 13th. And so a former Trump spokeswoman has been saying a lot. Where did J13 go? No one talks about J13. The congressman from Louisiana, Clay Higgins, released sort of my comments about the J13 investigation. So they're really trying to make J13 happens J13.
- [07:50]
Charlie Sykes
And it is interesting because it is very specifically an attempt to tie it to a larger plot or make it feel like a bigger event than it was, which is weird because it was a pretty big event. I don't think it's exaggerating too much to say that the event itself and the images that came out of the event were, if not decisive in the election, were hugely favorable for Donald Trump. Right. The icon, the iconography of Donald Trump on that stage, you know, holding his ear, etc. Like, that was. That was a big moment in the election.
- [08:24]
Will Sommer
Yeah, it was. It was huge. And you're absolutely right. I mean, this is sort of flared up again because Dan Bongino, the former the FBI Deputy director, went on Fox News and he said there wasn't a larger plot here. It was just one guy.
- [08:37]
Dan Bongino
I'm not going to tell people what they want to hear. I'm going to tell you the truth. And whether, whether you like it or not is up to you. If there was a big explosive there. There. Right. Given my history as a Secret Service agent and my personal friendship as a director, does with the president give me one logical, sensible reason we would not have. If you can think of one, there isn't. There isn't. In some of these cases, the there you're looking for is not there. And I know people, I get it. I understand it's not there. If it was there, we would have told you.
- [09:11]
Will Sommer
And this is infuriated Republicans because I think they really want to use this as an excuse to, you know, have these kind of what they saw as the January six, these kind of like never ending investigations and dragging people in front of Congress for to be subpoenaed or what have you. But you're right, I mean, it's not J13. To use their code here was not something that people really moved on from quickly. I mean, these are, these are very iconic pictures. And yet, I mean, after Bongino's comments, I think that was seen as an attempt to sort of close the book on the assassination attempt and move on and say that, you know, there's no one else who's going to be implicated. And I think they find that very frustrating.
- [09:51]
Charlie Sykes
It's interesting how Dan Bongino keeps kind of finding himself in the middle of these situations where he is getting yelled at by his former friends for like not finding the conspiracies that everybody thinks are supposed to be there.
- [10:04]
Will Sommer
It is fascinating. I mean this is something we, I've talked a lot about at False Flag, but there's this idea that Dan Bongino has sort of been appointed as like the kook liaison. Like maybe he like speaks their language or like he's coming from that world. And so he's kind of, I mean, constantly, like multiple times a week, still posting, okay, I know you guys are mad about that interview I did or, or you know, you're mad that we haven't arrested, you know, these deep staters, but you don't see what's going on. I mean, now he said in the same Fox interview people were bad because he said Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. Now he comes out and says, we're going to be putting out a new video proving he killed himself. I know you're all mad, but now we're going to put this out. So it is very, it's just unusual. Particularly the deputy FBI director is supposed to be the guy who's like making everything work. He's supposed to have the boring job of like the high profile cases while the, while the FBI director himself is, you know, kind of the public face. But Bongino really has been, you know, he's been taking the heat.
- [11:00]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. Anyway, J13, no, I, I, again, it's just, it's also just bad branding like J13. It doesn't, it doesn't really, it doesn't roll off.
- [11:09]
Will Sommer
And I think they missed the branding opportunity if it ever existed. You know, in the aftermath of this Bongino interview, Revolver News, which is a right wing conspiracy theory blog, very influential, they came out and said, you know, J13 is at risk of disappearing. And I mean in this case, in the keyword J13, specifically. I think it really never existed to begin with.
- [11:31]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. All right, well, you know, we, we, I, I don't want to do them any favors, but we could brainstorm ideas here of, you know, what do we want this be called? The Trump, Trump. Ear Gate. Ear gate. I don't know what the.
- [11:43]
Will Sommer
I feel like, like it's kind of become associated with Butler in a way. Like, I, I, I think like the, yeah, the ear, the assassination attempt. I mean, these are already pretty evocative ways. Right. The thing was with January 6th was. Or 9, 11, another one. I mean, these are kind of spread out. They, they're sort of like diffuse events where like, a lot was going on. And so it's useful to have like one date to sum it up. But in this case, it, the assassination attempt happened in one place. I think, you know, that might work.
- [12:10]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah. I guess assassination just has too many syllables, you know, J6, it's J6, J13 as three. Assassination, you know, Trump assassin. That's just too many. That's too many words. It doesn't really roll off the tongue.
- [12:22]
Will Sommer
Yeah, too many characters, I think it takes up too much space, too many sounds.
- [12:27]
Charlie Sykes
All right, well, thanks for, thanks for filling us all in on what's going on in the fever swamps.
- [12:32]
Will Sommer
Absolutely.