Charles Harder
Mike Lindell, the founder of MyPillow who moonlighted as an advisor to President Donald Trump, has hired famous defamation attorney Charles Harder to sue the Daily Mail after the outlet published a report claiming Lindell had an affair with actress Jane Krakowski.
Harder confirmed his representation of Lindell to Law&Crime on Saturday after a Daily Beast report from Friday evening.
Harder, best known for representing Hulk Hogan in the lawsuit that brought down Gawker, has a long list of celebrity clientele including former President Donald Trump and disgraced movie producer and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein.
The Daily Mail on Thursday claimed that Lindell and Krakowsi met in a studio while filming a show and proceeded to have a “secret nine month romance” that was “an open secret” in New York City’s West Village. The piece quoted several anonymous sources who claimed that the ultra-liberal Krakowski’s friends were baffled by her relationship with the Trump-supporting “bedding titan.”
But in an interview with the Daily Beast, Lindell claimed the “hit piece” was entirely false, saying he had “never met” Krakowsi, had never been to the West Village, and had never been to the Hamptons. (The latter location is where the Daily Mail claimed the two broke up.)
“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,” he said, adding that he’d hired Harder to represent him in suing the United Kingdom-based outlet.
In an email to Law&Crime, Harder reiterated Lindell’s allegations that the report was nothing more than a “hit piece” against his client and that a lawsuit was imminent.
“Mike Lindell has never met Jane Krakowski. The Daily Mail asked him to comment on a possible story that the two had secretly dated. He immediately told them he had never heard of her, and it was a ‘fake news story,’” Harder wrote. “The Daily Mail then recklessly published its false story, and defamed him in the process—falsely saying he gave her champagne and liquor. He is a recovering addict, and runs Lindell Recovery Network. Mr. Lindell plans to sue the Daily Mail.”
Dominion is taking steps to sue its outspoken critics for defamation. Lindell has already been tied into that litigation for publicly promulgating the debunked conspiracy theory that Dominion machines botched the 2020 election.
“You have positioned yourself as a prominent leader of the ongoing misinformation campaign,” read a Dominion letter to Lindell sent by attorney Thomas A. Clare.
“Despite knowing your implausible attacks against Dominion have no basis in reality, you have participated in the vast and concerted misinformation campaign to slander Dominion,” the letter continues before warning that “[l]itigation regarding these issues is imminent.”
[image via Beverly Hills Bar Association screengrab]