Over the past year, Mike Lindell sat for three depositions in a defamation lawsuit brought by Eric Coomer, a former Dominion Voting Systems executive who was the subject of a false conspiracy theory that he was on an "Antifa conference call" to rig the 2020 election.
None of them went well.
Throughout the depositions, the MyPillow CEO called Coomer and his lawyer "criminals," "disgusting slime," and "evil" and rambled so much that the court reporter transcribing one deposition refused to show up the next day, according to court filings and deposition video and transcripts reviewed by Insider.
During the final deposition, on August 23, Lindell left the room in the middle of questioning to call into Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast, where he hawked his company's pillows, sandals, and dog blankets.
"Well, Steve, I'm in the middle of a deposition for a big attack on MyPillow right now, and it's disgusting," Lindell told Bannon during the episode, before telling listeners they could get a discount on pillows with the promo code "WARROOM" for the company's 20th-anniversary sale.
"We have the MyPillow beds — the best beds in history," Lindell continued. "You haven't even heard about 'em yet."
"Mike Lindell, you're a patriot and a hero," Bannon responded. "Go back into your deposition and give them hell. Give them hell from the War Room."
When Lindell returned to the deposition, he insisted on keeping his cellphone with him, according to a filing from Coomer's legal team. When he stood up to take a call in the middle of questioning, Coomer's lawyers called it a day.
"Dr. Coomer's counsel finally suspended the deposition when Mr. Lindell again stood up and walked out of the room to take a call, shouting that Dr. Coomer's counsel was a 'jerk' as he left," Coomer's lawyers wrote. "The video record of these events is provided herein and is demonstrably worse than any attempt to describe the conduct."
The details of the depositions were recounted in a motion Coomer's attorneys filed Thursday asking a judge to sanction Lindell for his conduct.
The motion asked the judge to force Lindell to pay for all the costs associated with the depositions and to force him to sit in front of a judge for seven hours to finish answering questions.