MyPillow's Mike Lindell takes credit for Trump's August return-to-power fantasy

Former President Donald Trump really is focused on the absurd theory that he will somehow be returned to power in August, two people close to Trump tell The Daily Beast, confirming reporting by Maggie Haberman of The New York Times.

In the past few weeks, Trump "had begun increasingly quizzing confidants about a potential August return to power," The Daily Beast reports, citing the two Trump confidantes. "What's more, he claimed that a lot of 'highly respected' people — who Trump did not name — have been saying it's possible. Both of these sources said they decided not to tell the former president what they were thinking, which was that it's not going to happen."

There are people saying Trump will be returned to office — fringy lawyer Sidney Powell said so at a QAnon conference Sunday, for example — but "if Trump is saying August, that is probably because he heard me say it publicly," MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. Lindell first made his prediction on former Trump strategist Steve Bannon's podcast in March, but he conceded Wednesday that "the month of August, for this, is subjective."

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"It is my hope that Donald Trump is reinstated, after all the proof comes out, by the end of August, but I don't know if it'll be that month, specifically," Lindell told The Daily Beast. "That was my estimation. I spoke about it with my lawyers who said that they should have something ready for us to bring before the U.S. Supreme Court by July. So, in my mind, I hope that means that we could have Donald Trump back in the White House by August. That's how I landed on August, and I'm hopeful that that is correct."

It is not, obviously. Lindell's original theory was that he and his lawyers would present incontrovertible evidence of election fraud to the Supreme Court in April or May, leading to a 9-0 ruling to return Trump to the presidency and bipartisan buy-in over the summer that putting Trump back in the White House is the only right thing to do. Read more about Trump's interest in this fantasy, and its embrace by his grassroots fan base, at The Daily Beast.