Smartmatic and its allies—including political operatives and state-level collaborators in Minnesota—are waging a coordinated campaign of lawfare designed to silence Mike Lindell. This is no ordinary litigation. As China’s Unrestricted Warfare PLA warfighting handbook explains, lawsuits, audits, and financial chokeholds have become weapons of war. In Minnesota, Governor Tim Walz—alleged to have ties to the CCP—has overseen a state apparatus that has joined this assault, compounding federal and corporate pressure.
Lindell is not merely defending himself; he stands on the front lines in the modern theater of war.
The recently declassified Arctic Frost findings confirm a systematic financial and legal siege. By the standards set by the PLA, the effort to destroy Lindell—and similar attacks on other conservatives—is not just judicial abuse but an act of war against the American people.
Lawfare exploits America’s “contractual mentality,” according to PLA strategy, and reliance on its courts—turning our legal system into a battlefield advantage for the enemy. The CCP has weaponized our own Department of Justice and court system against us, just as senior PLA colones Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui planned in 1999. As I wrote in 2023, “The CCP will hold its opponents to legal and ethical standards it has no intention of following itself.”
That is why Lindell’s appeal may be the last stand for transparency in America’s elections. If Smartmatic succeeds in its current defamation suit, the chilling effect will be devastating: No one will dare question government contractors or foreign-linked election companies again; the precedent will silence watchdogs, terrify journalists, and place private corporations beyond scrutiny—precisely the outcome the CCP seeks worldwide.
The nation must rally behind targeted conservatives like Mike Lindell, and the federal government must treat these attacks as what they are: acts of war demanding a national defense.
Smartmatic’s lawsuit accuses Lindell of defaming the company by claiming its systems were used to rig elections. A federal judge in Minnesota recently ruled that Lindell made dozens of false statements but left unresolved the key question of whether he acted with “actual malice”—the legal standard Smartmatic must meet to collect damages.
Smartmatic’s lawsuit accuses Lindell of defamation for claiming its systems were used to rig elections, and while a federal judge in Minnesota ruled that he made dozens of false statements, the key question of “actual malice”—the legal threshold Smartmatic must prove to collect damages—remains unresolved. Lindell has vowed to appeal, arguing that the case is not about him personally but about preserving the right of all Americans to question election contractors without being silenced through lawfare. He maintains that Smartmatic’s suit is not driven by genuine financial or reputational harm, but is instead a tool of political thuggery—an attempt to punish and destroy him for daring to challenge the system.
Unlike Fox News and others who quietly paid billions to make their problems go away, Mike Lindell has taken a different path. He refuses to settle. He is appealing because he knows that the outcome of this fight will decide whether ordinary Americans still have the right to challenge government-linked corporations that hold our elections in their hands.
Smartmatic’s Web of Corruption and Vulnerability
Smartmatic is not the neutral, trustworthy contractor its defenders portray. In August 2024, its president, Roger Piñate, was charged with worldwide bribery and money laundering by the U.S. Department of Justice, accused of funneling $1 million in illicit payments to Philippine election chief Andres Bautista.
“Between 2015 and 2018, Roger Alejandro Piñate Martinez…together with others, allegedly caused at least $1 million in bribes to be paid to Juan Andres Donato Bautista…the former Chairman of COMELEC.” -U.S. Department of Justice, Aug. 9, 2024
“The co-conspirators allegedly funded the bribes through a slush fund that was created by over-invoicing the cost per voting machine for the 2016 Philippine elections. To conceal and disguise the nature and purpose of the corrupt payments, the co-conspirators used coded language…and caused the creation of fraudulent contracts and sham loan agreements to justify transfers.” -U.S. Department of Justice, Aug. 9, 2024
Smartmatic’s history is riddled with vulnerabilities:
- Its opaque offshore ownership has long raised alarms in Congress.
- Its machines failed catastrophically in the Philippines, where 78,000 Dominion units were “reconfigured” by Smartmatic engineer Heider Garcia—a man later hired to oversee Dallas County, Texas elections.
- Its closed, proprietary systems make it nearly impossible to verify if tamper-proof.
- Watchdog groups have repeatedly demanded federal reviews, questioning why foreign-linked corporations with questionable backgrounds are entrusted with America’s most sacred process.
Operation Arctic Frost: A Coordinated Siege
Arctic Frost shows Smartmatic’s lawsuit is part of a broader assault. In 2022–2023, DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith absorbed the operation while American Express cut Lindell’s credit line and the IRS launched five simultaneous audits. Declassified records in 2025 revealed subpoenas and bank seizures designed to cripple Lindell’s businesses so he could not withstand Smartmatic’s billion-dollar suit.
Minnesota Secretary of State: Collusion Close to Home
Minnesota’s Secretary of State denied counties such as Crow Wing any audit of the 2020 election, despite community concern. Meanwhile, Attorney General Keith Ellison opened investigations into three Lindell-linked nonprofits, alleging charity-law violations and citing unreported transfers between the nonprofits and MyPillow. Lindell calls the probe a politically motivated hit job layered on top of federal subpoenas, IRS audits, and credit-line reductions—a textbook lawfare strategy combining national and local pressure.
Layered on top of Arctic Frost’s federal attacks, Minnesota’s state-level pressure campaign demonstrates a coordinated strategy: silence Lindell nationally while suffocating him locally.
In September 2025, a federal judge ruled Lindell had defamed Smartmatic in 51 instances but left unresolved the key question of “actual malice.” That threshold will decide whether Americans may still question corporations without being bankrupted. If he loses, Smartmatic’s victory will establish a precedent branding any scrutiny as defamation.
That is why Lindell’s appeal is existential. It is not just about his company, MyPillow, or his personal reputation—it is about whether Americans still have the right to investigate, question, and dissent.
Lawfare: A Weapon of Tyranny That’s Got to Go!
The campaign is not litigation—it is lawfare: billion-dollar suits, financial chokeholds, and state-level collusion designed to destroy a dissenter as a warning to all others. State-level collusion ensures Lindell has no safe harbor in his own backyard.
As I argued in The Legislative and Executive Branches MUST Check the Judicial Branch, the legal system itself has been weaponized, becoming part of Unrestricted Warfare against the American people. The obvious starting point is reform: Congress and the Executive Branch must rein in a judiciary that’s been politically appropriated to persecute and abuse citizens. The Executive and Legislative branches must call a “timeout” on the Lindell case pending a full investigation into judicial abuse—the very check and balance the Founders intended.
If Smartmatic succeeds, the CCP wins and America loses. The precedent will silence watchdogs, shield corrupt contractors, and turn elections into black boxes beyond question or contestation.
As I wrote in three-part The Art of Defiance series, the law was never meant to flow down from rulers but up from the people. When rulers pervert justice and weaponize law, citizens are under no moral obligation to obey such abuses. To comply is not obedience to law, but submission to tyranny. Lindell’s case is the moment Americans must rediscover the art of lawful defiance.
Am I suggesting Lindell should defy the lawfare being waged against him? Absolutely…and the government should back him! Why? Because the lawfare plaguing our nation is unquestionably a tactic linked to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) covert war to destroy the United States of America.
Globally, lawfare is already a major weapon of our adversaries. In The Third Warfare: Chinese Lawfare and Antisemitism, I showed how the Chinese Communist Party uses American courts to crush dissidents and weaken America from within. Their strategy is to hold opponents to standards they themselves never follow. Just as the CCP uses lawfare to destroy enemies while remaining “above the law,” domestic actors now use the same playbook against Lindell.
According to the People’s Liberation Army handbook Unrestricted Warfare, modern conflict is no longer confined to tanks and trenches. “The first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden…using all means, military and non-military, to compel the enemy to accept one’s interests.” In this doctrine, lawsuits, audits, and financial chokeholds are not legal processes—they are weapons. A stock market crash, a computer virus, or a courtroom scandal all become “new-concept weapons” of war. By this definition, the lawfare unleashed against Mike Lindell is not litigation at all—it is warfare.
Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare:
“…future warfare…transcends all boundaries and limits, in short: unrestricted warfare. If this name becomes established, this kind of war means that all means will be in readiness, that information will be omnipresent, and the battlefield will be everywhere. It means that all weapons and technology can be superimposed at will, it means that all the boundaries lying between the two worlds of war and non-war, of military and non-military, will be totally destroyed…all citizens can be warriors, and all can be weapons.”
“…on the battlefields of the future…the most modern military force does not have the ability to control public clamor, and cannot deal with an opponent who does things in an unconventional manner.”
“…Precisely in the same way that modern technology is changing weapons and the battlefield, it is also at the same time blurring the concept of who the war participants are. From now on, soldiers no longer have a monopoly on war.”
The CCP’s doctrine declares that in unrestricted warfare, every citizen is a combatant and every arena—financial, informational, legal—is a battlefield. “The battlefield will be everywhere,” the handbook warns, and “commonplace things can also become weapons.” That is precisely what we see here: courts, nonprofits, bank accounts, and credit lines turned into instruments of war against American citizens. The chilling message is unmistakable: if they can crush Mike Lindell through lawfare, they can crush anyone—and since Lindell has been threatening China’s influence on American elections, he’s a prime target.
In my work with the recently departed Boone Cutler in This Is War, and in my own investigations into China’s strategies, I have warned that we are already under attack. From orchestrated border chaos to economic sabotage, the CCP follows its manual of unrestricted warfare—using every weapon but open fire. The lawfare against Lindell mirrors that exact strategy. His appeal must therefore be understood not only as a personal defense, but as a national stand.
If we permit lawfare to succeed here, we normalize acts of war against our own citizens. If we stop it now, we reclaim the rule of law and send a clear signal: America will not be subdued by the weapons of tyranny masquerading as justice.
Lindell’s appeal is not just his last stand—it may be the last stand for transparency in America’s elections. The nation must rally behind him, because what is being done to him is not ordinary litigation; it is the very “unrestricted warfare” described in the PLA handbook, unleashed as acts of war against the American Republic.
Every time peaceful patriots, concerned parents, and dissenters are targeted, the same weapons are being deployed—not to secure justice but to crush resistance. The U.S. government must recognize and respond to these tactics for what they are: coordinated acts of war against our nation’s citizens, orchestrated by a foreign nation, waged to silence those who challenge the narrative.
If we stop lawfare now, we reclaim the rule of law and send a clear signal: America will not be subdued by the weapons of tyranny masquerading as justice.
Kelly John Walker is an American statesman, senior writer, author, and entrepreneur. He is the Founder of FreedomTalk, Editor-in-Chief of FreedomTalk Magazine, and Co-Founder of Parents Demanding Justice Alliance. His work has appeared in The Washington Times, Gateway Pundit, The Epoch Times, Newsmax, Townhall, Law Enforcement Today, and more. He’s a frequent guest on national programs including Real America’s Voice, Bannon’s War Room, NTD Capitol Report, and more. Kelly holds degrees in English, Theology, and a Master of Science earned on a U.S. Department of Defense fellowship. In 2020, after being canceled and arrested for standing against government overreach, he became a leading independent journalist and advocate for liberty and parental rights.
Definition of Lawfare
Lawfare is, by definition, the weaponization of the legal system—using lawsuits, investigations, and regulatory power not for justice, but to intimidate, bankrupt, or silence political opponents. Its key features are:
- Weaponized litigation
- Regulatory harassment
- Financial chokeholds
- Chilling effect on dissent
- Coordinated legal assault
Lawfare Against Mike Lindell
| Lawfare Category | Examples Against Mike Lindell |
| Weaponized Litigation | Smartmatic’s billion-dollar defamation suit, intended to make Lindell a cautionary example. Federal court ruling found 51 defamatory statements but left ‘actual malice’ unresolved.
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| Regulatory Harassment | DOJ Arctic Frost subpoenas and bank record seizures; Five simultaneous IRS audits; Minnesota AG Keith Ellison’s probes into Lindell-linked nonprofits.
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| Financial Chokeholds | American Express cut Lindell’s credit line, draining liquidity. Combined with lawsuits and audits to weaken his ability to defend himself.
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| Chilling Effect on Dissent | If Smartmatic wins, precedent would silence journalists and watchdogs. Lindell positioned as a warning case—’destroy one man to silence millions’.
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| Coordinated Legal Assault | Federal (DOJ, IRS), corporate (American Express), and state-level (MN AG, Secretary of State) actors all targeted Lindell simultaneously, leaving him no safe harbor. |
