Dec. 26—MANKATO — The FBI's execution of a search warrant on My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell at a local fast-food drive-thru brought a wave of attention to Mankato earlier this year.
Lindell, an enthusiastic exponent of former President Donald Trump's false claims of a stolen election, has said he was forced to hand his phone to FBI agents who surrounded him Sept. 13 at a Mankato Hardee's drive-thru.
Lindell has since sued the FBI and Department of Justice for violating his constitutional rights, claiming the seizing of his phone was an "unlawful detention."
Lindell has also stated in the lawsuit filing that he was frightened "for his and his friend's lives" and was "prepared to ram one of the vehicles to escape" after the FBI surrounded his truck to execute a warrant to seize his phone.
The warrant was part of an FBI investigation centered on a Colorado official accused of allowing an unauthorized person to break into the county's election system to search for evidence that would validate Trump's election conspiracy theories.
Lindell, born in Mankato and raised in Chaska, said he was returning from a duck hunting trip in Iowa when the FBI phone seizure happened.
Reports then said that the incident occurred at the Hardee's on Highway 169 north, but it has since been confirmed the seizure was at the Hardee's on Madison Avenue.
An FBI spokesperson, who was contacted by several national media outlets, confirmed agents were "at that location executing a search warrant authorized by...
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