Trump Ally Sues Us Justice Department Demands Return Of Seized Cell Phone

(Reuters) – The chief executive of My Pillow Inc, Mike Lindell, an ally of former President Donald Trump, sued the U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday seeking the return of his cellphone, which was seized by FBI agents last week. In his lawsuit in federal court in Minnesota, Lindell said agents stopped him at a fast-food drive-thru window and questioned him about his claims that the 2020 US election was rigged. Agents then served a warrant and told Lindell to turn over the phone, according to the court filing. In addition to returning his phone, Lindell wants to prevent the Justice Department from accessing any data collected from the device, the filing showed. The FBI confirmed last week that its agents were “at that location executing a search warrant authorized by a federal judge,” but gave no further details. The FBI and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Tuesday. Lindell told the media last week that FBI agents asked him about Tina Peters, a Mesa County employee in Colorado. Peters, with whom Lindell was linked, has been accused by state authorities of allowing an unauthorized person to break into the county’s election system in order to look for evidence to support Trump’s claims of a campaign conspiracy. Lindell’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice, which also named U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray as defendants, alleged that Lindell’s constitutional rights were violated by the seizure. After his phone was seized on September 13, Lindell claimed in a podcast that the seizure prevented him from conducting business and accessing his funds. “Not only do I run five businesses out of it, I don’t use a laptop, I don’t use a computer, it was all on that phone,” Lindell said. Separately, on Monday, a Minnesota federal judge ruled that Lindell must face a defamation lawsuit brought by a voting machine company that Lindell falsely accused of rigging the 2020 US election. (Reporting by Eric Beech and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Edwina Gibbs)