Fact Checking ‘Absolutely 9-0,’ the Latest Documentary From Mike Lindell

The MyPillow CEO makes unsupportable claims about data packets and ‘packet capture.’

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On June 3, MyPillow CEO and Donald Trump supporter Mike Lindell released a third documentary claiming that Trump won the 2020 presidential election. The latest, Absolutely 9-0, follows Lindell’s previous two documentaries, Absolute Proof and Absolute Interference, both of which we have previously fact checked. All three claim, despite a lack of evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. 

Lindell claims that Absolutely 9-0 will show why he has been “100% sure that when this gets before the Supreme Court it’s going to be 9-0,” adding that “this was 100% an attack by China on our country through these machines.” In mentioning “these machines,” Lindell is referring to Dominion Voting Systems machines that were used in parts of 28 states in the 2020 election. Dominion was the subject of many false claims about election fraud. 

Lindell was sued by Dominion Voting Systems in February for his baseless public statements about the company’s involvement in “stealing the election” from Trump. In April, Lindell filed a countersuit against Dominion, claiming that Dominion’s goal is to “silence debate” and that the suit interferes with free speech. Earlier this month, Lindell filed another lawsuit against both Dominion and Smartmatic, another company that provides voting technology services and was subject to false claims during the election,  “to stop electronic voting machine companies from weaponizing the litigation process to silence political dissent and suppress evidence showing voting machines were manipulated to affect outcomes in the November 2020 general election.”

A portion of Absolutely 9-0 is centered on Lindell’s interview with an anonymous “cybersecurity expert” with “over 20 years experience working in both the private sector and with government law enforcement.” The “expert” and Lindell then present what the “expert” calls the “raw encrypted data” that he claims are “PCAPs.” 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Jason Gibson

    Lindell is the Michael Moore of the right

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    Michael Darwin

    So has no one sat this guy down and explained how much of a fool he is making himself? Is this good for his business? Is buying a MyPillow now like eating a Chick-Fil-A?

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  3. Anonymous

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    1. KIttye

      So why do you subscribe? I do because, for the most part, TD is one of the most rational publications out there. Most of the commenters are too.

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        F.X. LEACH

        Damn it. I meant The Dispatch Fact Checks. Oh well

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        F.X. LEACH

        I think you misunderstand. Or I said it clunky. Imbecile = Lindell.

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          F.X. LEACH

          Think I’m going to have to repost it so that it makes sense. Lol

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    Anne W (Raw5254)

    So, is Mike Lindell “Q?” Because that’s what all this BS sounds like. I’m getting my hair trimmed Thursday, and the woman who cuts my hair is really into this garbage. I can’t wait to hear her take on things. Not really.

    Even though I appreciate all the information provided on how these “packets” work, I’ll admit that I was lost. But, I got the idea. Unfortunately, we have a lot of people out there who are willing to suspend common sense, and believe anything that supports whatever it is they want to believe. And I think the scary part is that a lot of them are actually smart. Lindell has/had a successful business. Look at Rudy!

    I don’t have a college education, and I don’t consider myself exceptional in any way, BUT I do take the time to look at things, read, and consider what actually makes sense. What is going on with people?!

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    Dustin Anglin

    Folks are avoiding the real question, which is what is Dominion going to do with their brand new pillow company?

    Honestly, I'd love to hear some legal folks chime in on what Lindell is doing. Is he trying to do something like establish that he sincerely believes his lies so that can use that as a defense in court? I don't know how defamation suits work, but so far it seems to easily check the "5 elements" of a defamation case, and considering Lindell has plenty of assets to lose, I don't understand why his own legal counsel hasn't physically restrained him. It's hard to tell whether we are just witnessing a self-destructive manic episode from a mentally disturbed man, or some kind of attempt - clumsy, ham-fisted, or otherwise - at a legal play to protect himself.

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  6. Gabriel

    At this point you have to wonder if Lindell himself isn't being trolled by his "cybersecurity expert." Opening an irrelevant file in a hexedecimal viewer and saying it's a PCAP sounds like exactly the kind of thing one might do to troll a non-techie -- kind of like taking a picture of a random computer component and saying "here's the flux capacitor that was switching the votes."

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  7. Brett

    I appreciate you taking the time to refute Lindell’s latest claim but, honestly, anyone who still believes Lindell has chosen to do so because he supports their preferred narrative. The issue is not the lack access to factual information.

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      Kyler

      There is certainly a grain of truth to your comment, but I'm not sure that it is entirely right. A whole lot of people get their information from one or two sources, and nowhere else. This is exacerbated by social media bubbles whose algorithms are programmed to feed people information that they want to see. I can agree that it isn't lack of access that is the source of the false belief. But there is quite a lot to be said about lack of exposure.

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      Man-Eating Cow

      Most cons work because the mark wants to believe.

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    Stephanie

    Thanks for sorting this all out. I knew it was BS. I knew it would not be convincing, but of course I didn't know why it was BS. I'm ready now for the Trumpy friends telling me how Mike Lindell exposed it all . . . the fact checking alone makes the Dispatch subscription worthwhile (along with the Comments section).

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    Pat Riot

    This is the real Republican party right here.

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    Kentucky78

    It is hard to capture packets from voting machines that are not connected to the internet. At least in my country I can tell you with 100 % certainty they aren't. The people running elections say voting machines are not internet connected anywhere.

    There are lots of poorly written articles about internet connected voting machines that over state the risk and don't even identify internet connected machines. Just some guy crawled the internet and found machines that looked like voting machines. I assume they had MAC addresses for voting machine company equipment but the articles don't tell you exactly how they identified them. The smoking gun was a machine disappeared off the Internet after the article was written. Some smoking gun.

    The voting machines I have operated as a poll worker have RJ45 ethernet ports. These are not connected to anything while voting. You need some way to program the machines which must be what the ports are for.

    Even if you hacked an Escan type voting machine you have the paper ballots to count after the fact. Even in an uncontested election a sample of voting machines is audited to make sure the machine count and hand count agree. In Georgia they hand counted all of them and didn't find anything that altered the election.

    There is also lots of other safeguards. For example the voter roll (the book you sign) count of voters must agree with the machine count. The paper ballots are all accounted for. The machines have seals that cannot be broken without a judge and representatives from the candidates and political parties in attendance. In my county when the polls close a Democrat and Republican get in the same car and drive the pcmcia card (an ancient computer storage method) with the poll results as well as thermal printouts of the poll results to the county court house. At the county courthouse there are representatives from the parties in attendance. A paper copy of the results is taped to the door of polling place just a few minutes after the polls close.

    Maybe the Dispatch should write an in depth article about how voting works and all the safeguards that are in place for a state like Georgia, Michigan, Arizona or Pennsylvania. People don't realize just how much of this is manual input and not automated. The issues identified in Georgia were human error not fraud.

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    1. LucyTrice

      Well said! This is consistant with my experience in NC.

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      Kentucky78

      I meant to say in my county, not country.

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        Angie

        That's ok, I read it as county anyway...lol...must be because I assumed?

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    3. Seth

      Thanks for sharing these details. I agree that a laymans explainer on the details like this could be really helpful, and might help people understand the flaws in these conspiracy theories.

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      Stephanie

      Thanks for this. The people pushing the "widespread voter fraud" and "irregularities" know that millions of people will unskeptically repeat that nonsense without any interest in knowing what you just explained. Social media has pretty much proven that stupidity can overcome facts.

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