By now, everyone’s probably at least heard of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. The “MyPillow Guy” became infamous over the past few years for his seemingly undying support for former-President Donald Trump, getting his own company’s Twitter account permanently banned for trying to spread disinformation about fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
However, Lindell was far from the only corporate CEO to go to bat for Trump in his attempts to overturn his loss in the election.
At the latest Jan. 6 committee hearing last Tuesday, former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne was revealed to have attended at least one meeting at the White House in December of 2020 and was directly involved in discussions with Trump and his administration on how to overturn the election.
According to CNN, Byrne, the former head of the e-commerce giant, spent nearly 8 hours behind closed doors testifying to the House select committee just this past Friday.
The day after Tuesday’s hearing, Overstock released a statement following the revelations of its former CEO’s involvement in Trump’s attempts to overturn the election.
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While it is true that Byrne did not have a relationship with Overstock during these events, he did take part in wild conspiratorial claims while he was still CEO. In fact, in an official Overstock press release in August 2019, Byrne would release a conspiratorial statement about the “deep state” and supposed political espionage that was being conducted by the Obama administration against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The press release can still be found on the official Overstock.com investor website.
Shortly after the press release was published, Byrne was revealed to be having a romantic relationship with Russian spy Maria Butina. He resigned as Overstock CEO on August 22, 2019, as a result.
The December 18, 2020 White House meeting attended by Byrne has been a major focus of the committee. Trump, himself, as well as his QAnon-believing former national security adviser Michael Flynn and his lawyer Sidney Powell were also in attendance. The meeting focused on ways to overturn the election results in Trump’s favor and included a discussion on how to block the certification of Joe Biden as president. Other possibilities, such as seizing voting machines, were also discussed. A former White House aide called the meeting “unhinged” with various Trump confidants arguing over how to proceed with their attempts to subvert democracy.
Just 6 hours after that meeting with Byrne, Flynn, Powell, and others, Trump tweeted a call-to-action to his followers, asking them to show up at a protest in DC on Jan. 6.
“Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election,” tweeted Trump at 1:42 am on Dec. 19. “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
A few weeks later, Trump supporters would storm the Capitol building in an attempt to overturn the election results for Trump.
