Springfield played host Saturday to Mike Lindell's “Moment of Truth Summit,” a rally against the use of machines in the American voting process. It was the first in a two-day event attracting hundreds of attendees downtown.
In the wake of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, MyPillow founder Lindell has been crusading across the country making allegations of voter fraud leading to Democrat Joe Biden defeating incumbent Republican Donald Trump by an electoral vote of 306-232. The summit took place at the Springfield Expo Center, across St. Louis Street from the University Plaza Hotel.
“The big thing is if you have voting machines in your country, you lose your country forever,” Lindell said. “There’s no secure machines, period. No blockchain, no nothing, it’s over, you lose your country. The machines have to go.”
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IMAGES: From the ‘Moment of Truth Summit' in Springfield, Mo.
Photos from day one of the Moment of Truth Summit in Springfield, Mo., an event organized by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell
Attorneys for Trump have filed 63 different lawsuits in an effort to bring a case for election fraud to the U.S. Supreme Court, but none of those lawsuits have been successful.
“What’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong, this is a spiritual battle of evil and good,” Lindell said from the stage in Springfield on Aug. 20. “This is to save our country.”
Entering the invite-only event
Upon walking into the Springfield Expo Center, guests passed through standing metal detectors and had their bags checked by security guards in olive drab and black uniforms. They stood as the guards passed metal detecting wands over their persons.
After clearing the metal detectors, attendees then verified that they had been invited to attend. Workers used tablet computers to verify invitations, although some of the people working the admissions desks were using a paper checklist on a clipboard.
While the event was firmly in Missouri, cars and trucks in the parking lot bore license plates from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, Florida, Montana, Mississippi, Maryland, Tennessee, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky and New Mexico, among others.
On July 29, Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft touted Missouri’s election security measures after the America First Policy Institute recognized Missouri as “a nationwide leader for election integrity.”
“Our office worked with the General Assembly this past session to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat so that voters can continue to have trust in our elections,” Ashcroft said.
Trump legal team member Jenna Ellis
Jenna Ellis, an attorney who represented Trump in the wake of the 2020 election, took the stage with Lindell Saturday morning shortly after the summit began. Earlier in the week, a judge in Colorado ordered Ellis to appear before a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia on Aug. 25. The grand jury is investigating claims into whether or not Trump could be accused of any crimes in pushing a narrative that Georgia election results were falsified. The order fueled speculation as to whether or not Ellis would make the trip to Missouri, but she did.
“I’m apparently supposed to be under house arrest or something,” Ellis joked.
Ellis said her interest in representing Trump was for true and fair elections, and not for political motivations.
“One of the most ridiculous false narratives that they continue to say is that we were trying to overturn the election when we were simply trying to get to the truth,” Ellis said. “That’s what lawyers who represent a case, represent a claim, represent a client — you are representing their interests, and here, the interests of course were President Trump, but getting to every legal vote, counting and counting fairly, which actually, is representing the interests of the United States of America.”
Ellis fired back at claims that her legal work on Trump’s behalf undermined the democratic process of voting.
“Our democracy wouldn’t exist and won’t exist if we don’t have free and fair elections; that is the foundation of our society,” Ellis said.
During Ellis’ appearance, Lindell claimed his motives were not partisan, though he was careful to also express support for Trump.
“The Democrats warned us of the machines for 18 years, maybe even longer — warning, warning, warning,” Lindell said. “This kind of makes sense now that the blockers are the Republicans, you know most of the blockers in the states where you have this block going on. But once again, by the media using that narrative that it was just to put our great president Donald Trump back in office, by using that, that’s a little miracle here.”
Ellis concluded her appearance by asking attendees to donate money to the Lindell Legal Fund, which she called the “Lindell Defense Fund,” but received correction from the pillow-made multimillionaire.
“The Lindell Legal Offense Fund, which helps everyone in the country,” Lindell said.
Pro-Trump lawyer Kurt Olsen
Another attorney, Kurt Olsen, took the stage with Lindell on Saturday morning. Olsen is known for signing on with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a failed bid to legally overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Olsen is listed as a special counsel to the Texas attorney general in a complaint Paxton, acting on behalf of Texas, filed against the states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, challenging that the four states’ “factual defense of the administration of the 2020 election lacks merit.”
Olsen contended that election meddlers used COVID-19 as an excuse to change voting methods and lighten up on election security.
“None of the changes that the secretaries of state and the courts and the governors made made elections more secure,” Olsen said. “I will say it: I believe it was stolen. It was rigged.”
Olsen said unfair elections could impact persons in all states, regardless of their party affiliations.
“If you have voting machines in your country, you lose your country forever,” Olsen said. “No matter what side you’re on, free and fair elections are at the heart of our Republic.”
A ‘War Room’ appearance before the event
As Lindell and his guests spoke on the main stage, former Trump White House chief strategist turned podcaster/broadcaster Steve Bannon hosted a live version of his show from the back of the room.
On July 22, a federal jury found Bannon guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress due to Bannon’s failure to comply with a subpoena from the U.S. House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Bannon, 68, is scheduled to be sentenced in the District of Columbia on Oct. 21.
On Aug. 16, Lindell appeared on “Bannon’s War Room” from an office setting with a piece of artwork depicting an image of a male African lion against the silhouette of Jesus Christ wearing a crown of thorns. Leading to the Moment of Truth Summit, Lindell called the Springfield event, “A gathering of eagles around voter integrity.”
“The only way this fails is if people don’t watch,” Lindell said.
After the “How We Got Here” portion of the event on Sunday morning, a parade of delegates said to represent all 50 of the United States were to go to the stage and explain voting, and computer and machine involvement in the voting process, in their state.
“All 50 states in alphabetical order are going to get on that stage and say what their current footprint is, what their blocks have been, where their successes have been, and it’s going to be very real, make it very real that these elections — not just 2020 but all elections — we’ve got to get rid of the machines,” Lindell said.
Bannon said it was important for voters to know how elections work in their home states.
“If we don’t win this, we’re done,” Bannon said. “If a person lives in Kansas, they can come into the Kansas part of it if that’s what they’re interested — but they’ll find out exactly where they stand in Kansas and how we can thwart any skullduggery, skull-drudgery, between now and the eighth of November to make sure that these elections are as open and as fair as we can possibly have them.”
On Saturday night, the attendees at the summit were to watch a debuting movie called “Selection Code.” The next day, the itinerary included a Sunday morning prayer service before what Lindell billed as “The Trial of the Machines.”
“This will shock the world, I promise you, and it’s going to change everything,” Lindell said.
Lindell told Bannon the event would conclude with “call to action” on Sunday night, “to not only get rid of the machines, but get our country righted and back.”
