There is a version of this story that is simply funny. Mike Lindell, pillow magnate, professional election denier, aspiring Minnesota governor, standing in front of a camera at CPAC insisting that being on television is a legal shield against process service — saying "we're on TV, please" like a man who believes the laws of the United States only apply to people who are not currently being filmed — grabbing the papers, then hurling them off camera like they're on fire, then trying to resume the interview. That version is funny. But it's also the conclusion of a story that started with a man choosing to destroy someone's life with lies, and learning, slowly and expensively, that lies have a receipts problem.
The Timeline.
Lindell uses his Frankspeech media platform to broadcast claims that Eric Coomer, a former director at Dominion Voting Systems, personally rigged the 2020 election. He accuses Coomer of treason. He says it repeatedly, on air, to his audience. Coomer loses his job. Death threats follow. His life is upended.
An eight-member jury in Denver finds Lindell and his company Frankspeech liable for defaming Eric Coomer. The verdict: $2.7 million in damages. The jury concludes that Lindell's statements were false, that he acted with actual malice, and that Coomer will likely never be able to work in anything election-related again because of what Lindell did to his name.
US District Judge Nina Wang rejects Lindell's motion to overturn the verdict. In her ruling she also raises serious ethical concerns about Lindell's lawyers — specifically that they cited a court case in their filings that appears to have been generated by AI and does not exist. She orders Lindell's attorneys Christopher Kachouroff and Jennifer DeMaster to explain why they shouldn't be fined and referred to their state bars for disciplinary proceedings. The judge also rejects Coomer's motion to increase the damages, so it's not a total win for either side — but Lindell walks away having lost on every point that matters.
Lindell is at CPAC in Grapevine, Texas, doing a live interview with O'Keefe Media Group. A woman in a red dress steps into frame mid-sentence. "Hi, sorry to interrupt. I have this for you. You've been served." What follows is one of the most earnest eleven-repetition performances of the phrase "we're on TV, please" ever recorded. He tells her he's not accepting it. She informs him that legally, he doesn't have a choice. He grabs the papers and throws them off camera. The content of the new lawsuit has not been disclosed.
"We're on TV, please." — Mike Lindell, eleven times, to a process server who did not care and was legally correct not to.
The AI Court Case Detail Is Not a Small Thing.
The detail about the AI-hallucinated court citation deserves its own paragraph because it captures something important about how the MAGA grift machine operates. Lindell's lawyers, in filing their motion to overturn a jury verdict, cited a case as having been decided by a federal appeals court. The case does not appear to exist. The judge noticed. She now wants to know why these lawyers shouldn't face professional consequences for submitting fabricated legal authority to a federal court. This is the same ecosystem that produced Sidney Powell's "Kraken" filings, that produced dozens of election challenge lawsuits that courts threw out one by one, that produced years of confident claims about Dominion machines and Italian satellites and Venezuelan ballot manipulation — all of it constructed from the same combination of motivated reasoning, bad faith, and apparently now AI that makes things up. The lies went into the machine. The machine generated more lies. A judge in Colorado is now sorting through the wreckage.
Eric Coomer Still Can't Work in Elections.
This is worth saying plainly. Judge Wang's ruling specifically notes Coomer's testimony that Lindell's statements accusing him of election-rigging made him unlikely to ever work in anything election-related again. Lindell said things on his platform that were false, that a jury found were said with actual malice, and those things ended a man's career in his field. The $2.7 million verdict is real money, but it doesn't give Coomer his professional reputation back. Lindell is running for governor of Minnesota — a state where a recent poll has Amy Klobuchar beating him 52% to 32% in a general election. He will continue to be on TV, please. And apparently, the process servers will continue to find him there.
This post distinguishes between documented facts, allegations, and analysis. Where motive, intent, corruption, or illegality remains disputed in the public record, the text attributes that judgment to court findings, official records, direct quotes, or the reporting linked below.
- Deadline / MS NOW: Judge Wang rejects post-trial motion; lawyers cited non-existent AI-generated case; attorneys face sanctions referral to state bars; Coomer testimony on career impact.
- Mediaite: Full account of CPAC service; "we're on TV, please" exchange; O'Keefe Media Group interview; papers thrown off camera.
- Newsweek: Confirmed Lindell is running for Minnesota governor in 2026; Klobuchar 52–32 poll; jury verdict $2.7M against Frankspeech; new lawsuit contents unknown.
- HuffPost: Timeline of service; connection to Dominion/Coomer case; CPAC location confirmed Grapevine Texas March 26, 2026.