Mike Lindell Had Wages Garnished, IRS Lien on Texas House in 2024

By Emilie Munson
Star Tribune
(TNS)

July 17 — President Donald Trump’s pick for Minnesota governor, Mike Lindell, has spent years battling the Internal Revenue Service over a $6 million debt and had his personal MyPillow company wages garnished, according to a Star Tribune review of the Republican candidate’s sworn depositions in 2024.

While Lindell has been transparent about many of his financial troubles in recent years, there has been little scrutiny of the tax liabilities from his flop investment in a supplement Lindell hoped would be approved to treat or prevent COVID-19 infections.

At the height of the pandemic, Lindell spent $10 million buying oleandrin, a substance extracted from a toxic plant, according to his sworn depositions and an interview with the Star Tribune. But Lindell said in the deposition that the product failed to win approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration despite Lindell seeking help from Trump. Without that approval, vast quantities of the supplement sat in a warehouse in Lakeville until it expired.

Lindell said in a June 2024 deposition that the IRS refused to allow him to deduct the loss in the year he wanted and eventually placed a $6 million lien on his Texas home. He also said the government garnished half of his MyPillow wages.

In an interview Wednesday, Lindell downplayed the debt and said the deduction was perfectly legal. He said he’s now engaged in productive negotiations with the IRS.

“All this stuff is getting resolved this summer,” he said. “Everything has been resolved or is getting resolved.”

Lindell’s tax issues are surfacing a year after the Washington Post reported that a senior Trump administration appointee contacted the agency about Lindell’s taxes, noting the Republican was a “high-profile friend of the president.” The New York Times later reported the IRS didn’t act on the Trump appointee’s email.

The IRS did not respond to a request for comment.

Lindell’s latest tax troubles come as he’s working to convince voters that he should be the next governor. He’s running in the Aug. 11 Republican primary against Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth and Kendall Qualls, a retired health care executive who won party backing in May. The winner will face U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the DFL-endorsed candidate for governor, in November.

A company linked to Lindell also owes at least $30,000 in delinquent taxes on Lindell’s Tonka Bay residence, Hennepin County records show. Lindell told the Minnesota Reformer this week he couldn’t afford to pay the taxes last year but would be paying this week. Lindell hasn’t paid the taxes as of July 13, according to a Hennepin County official.

In his 2024 depositions, Lindell said MyPillow was “in the hole every day.”

“I have no assets,” Lindell said. “There’s nothing left.”

Lindell’s financial struggles will likely play a role in the upcoming Republican primary. He suffered well-documented financial losses after becoming one of the nation’s most outspoken voices falsely claiming the 2020 election was rigged.

Those statements generated defamation cases from two voting machine companies, Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. Lindell’s depositions were taken in the Smartmatic suit. A judge in that case ruled last year that Lindell was liable for defamation. A jury has to decide whether to award damages.

In June, the company formerly known as Dominion Voting Systems settled its defamation lawsuit against Lindell. An executive who worked at Dominion also successfully sued Lindell and was awarded $2.3 million by a jury last year.

The legal fallout prompted several retailers to stop selling Lindell’s pillows.

After Trump’s endorsement on Wednesday, the Minnesota Republican Party raised concerns about Lindell’s finances.

Lindell “wants Minnesota Republicans to overlook his serious financial baggage, public records showing tens of thousands of dollars in delinquent property taxes, significant electability concerns and unanswered questions surrounding his running mate,” said Minnesota Republican Party Chair Alex Plechash. “Minnesota cannot afford to nominate a ticket that gives Democrats an easy target.”

Lindell said in an interview Wednesday, “we’re not going anywhere” despite “attacks” on his background.

“Of course I did [have financial problems],” Lindell said. “I was the most attacked company in history and by far by our government, and I was sued by [voting] machine companies because they didn’t want the truth to come out. All that’s gone away now.”

On Easter 2020, Andrew Whitney approached Mike Lindell with what he described as a business proposition from God. Whitney told Lindell that he had received a divine message about a “cure for the virus” and “God told him to only trust Mike Lindell,” according to text messages introduced during Lindell’s deposition.

Whitney served as an executive on the board of a company called Phoenix Biotechnology, according to multiple news reports.

The proposed cure was oleandrin, “which is like an ivermectin or a hydroxychloroquine,” Lindell said in the deposition, referring to two medications that some people took to treat COVID-19, despite strong evidence disproving their effectiveness.

Whitney approached Lindell after the pillow vendor appeared with Trump in late March 2020, when Lindell and other CEOs were at the White House to promote efforts to make personal protective equipment to fight the pandemic. At the time, Lindell, who has no medical experience, shifted his operations from making pillows to crafting masks.

Persuaded by Whitney’s pitch, Lindell “put in $10 million” for oleandrin purchases, he said in the deposition. He also joined the Phoenix Biotechnology board, a position he held from 2020 to 2022, said Sarah Duncan, president of Phoenix Biotechnology Inc.

Duncan said Whitney is no longer involved in the company. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

During his deposition, Lindell said the then-Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Dr. Ben Carson, and other doctors had “validated” the supplement. In text messages sent in May 2020 to a MyPillow shareholder, Lindell wrote that he met with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence about the supplement “for an hour alone and we have been getting it ready ever since,” according to the deposition.

“I bought $10 million worth (…) to give away and to save the country, and met with the president,” Lindell said in 2024. “And then we had [it] arranged with the [FDA]. The FDA shut it down. And so to this day, I’m still sitting on it.”

The supplements expired, Lindell said. He was unsuccessful in his attempts to ship them to the Philippines, Brazil and Israel.

“Once we couldn’t sell it here, we were giving it away,” Lindell told the Star Tribune.

Lindell claimed that MyPillow employees took the supplement during the pandemic and “we never got sick,” according to the deposition. In text messages sent in 2020 to a MyPillow shareholder, Lindell wrote “We’ve been giving it to hundreds under the radar. It will change history and I for sure should win president in 2024.” (In a later deposition, Lindell claimed he was just being sarcastic about winning the presidency.)

Lindell also took the supplement himself, he added in an interview.

“I can count at least 10 lives it saved,” Lindell said. “If it saved one life, to me it was worth it.”

In an interview this week, Lindell said part of the $6 million debt was related to a dispute with the IRS over when to claim a pandemic-era refundable tax credit for employee retention, as well as his attempts to deduct his losses on the expired supplement.

Lindell also said in 2024 that half of his MyPillow wages were “being garnished by the government.” In a separate deposition that year, Lindell estimated his weekly MyPillow pay to be $20,000 to $30,000.

Lindell ended his interview with the Star Tribune before he could be asked about the wage garnishment and did not respond to follow-up questions about it.

The IRS has been auditing Lindell’s taxes in recent years, according to the depositions and an interview with Lindell. The focus of the audit is unclear but Lindell indicated the oleandrin deduction and the employee retention tax credit were among the issues. In 2024, he called it “the biggest audit in history.” This week, Lindell suggested the tax dispute is being resolved but the audit concluded last year.

“The IRS told me I couldn’t even do my taxes for the last four years until we resolved all this because there were a couple of big issues,” Lindell said while insisting the tax dispute will be settled.

Lindell said he doesn’t believe he received special treatment from the IRS under Trump.

Lindell confirmed to the Star Tribune that his Texas property was subject to the lien. During his 2024 deposition, Lindell said his “only residence” is in Lufkin, Texas, but property records reviewed this month show an LLC registered to Lindell owned the $600,000 Texas home since 2022 and a $1.6 million Tonka Bay home since 2021.

Lindell said he’s now living full-time in Minnesota.

Lindell also suggested during the deposition that he’s “trying to avoid” filing for personal bankruptcy.

In 2025, Lindell told a judge in a federal hearing “I’m in ruins,” and was unable to pay his growing debts.

But in his interview with the Star Tribune, Lindell expressed hope as his legal matters were winding down.

“We’re still standing here,” he said. “We’re not going anywhere in Minnesota despite all the attacks.”

— Minnesota Star Tribune staff writer Mike Hughlett contributed to this story.

Photo caption: Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Mike Lindell makes his case for the GOP nomination during the second day of the convention on May 30, in Duluth. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS)

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