In case you missed it, a quick recap of our exclusive story:
The Secret Origin of Mike Lindell: How the secretive group behind the National Prayer Breakfast radicalized TV's pillow pitchman.
tyt.com/stories/5v3O8b…
As Lindell says, he went from apolitical, casual Christian...
...to leading Christian nationalist...
...after a series of otherwise-inexplicable events convinced him God had a plan for him.
Here's what really happened.
Then, in 2014, Mike Lindell met a missionary for Jesus, a man named...
...Stephen Baldwin.
Lindell and Baldwin became friends, and the next year, Baldwin nominated Lindell for an award, complete with fancy reception...
...exposing Lindell to a crowd of people who began "waking [him] up"...
In 2016, Lindell goes to the National Prayer Breakfast.
He told me Baldwin invited him, but I said I had internal Family docs showing he was officially invited by someone else, a man named Wilfred Job.
And I could prove Job was connected to Baldwin...before he even met Lindell.
In fact, all 3 directors of Baldwin's ministry in 2013 were connected to The Family.
A source told me Job and Todd Hendricks often worked together.
And Hendricks invited Baldwin to the 2016 National Prayer Breakfast.
The 3rd director of Baldwin's ministry was a massive right-wing donor...
...whose husband had been identified in Philippine media as a spokesperson for "the National Prayer Breakfast" (he actually works for McKesson, not the govt.)
Lindell told me he had "no idea" who Wilfred Job is...
...but whether Lindell knew it or not, that wasn't his only connection to Job.
(You can read more about Job's ties with Stephen Baldwin in our sidebar here: tyt.com/stories/2E4lb3…
When I told Lindell his foundation paid Wilfred Job $55K in 2017, he asked me where I get these lies, threatened me with jail, and hung up on me.
Here's where I got that:
projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/org…
Lindell told me his foundation hasn't done anything in 4 years. Maybe he doesn't know they keep filing 990s.
You can read here how, as the Family got involved, the Lindell Foundation shifted from helping addicts to funding evangelicals:
tyt.com/stories/4vZLCH…
Anyway, back to Lindell.
One of the inexplicable events that turned him to Jesus was being "randomly" picked to meet Ben Carson at the 2016 National Prayer Breakfast.
Let's look at how random that was.
Baldwin was there--and we know Baldwin already knew Carson because Baldwin introduced them.
But now let's look at who was working on Carson's presidential campaign at the time...
Carson's PR guy was A. Larry Ross (we'll get back to him).
Carson's campaign manager, Bob Dees, was a Family friend, who told me NPB leadership specifically asked to have Carson meet Lindell.
Who was in NPB (National Prayer Breakfast) leadership at the time?
Carson's PR guy, A. Larry Ross, was the breakfast spokesperson and has sat on the board of the Fellowship Foundation (aka The Family) since 2011.
Although this grouping of Carson, Lindell, et al. is seemingly random...
...at an event that's allegedly nonpartisan...
...they're all on the exact same page politically...
...and bring Lindell along with them, according to his own book:
(Lindell is also blown away by the prophecy that some of the people there will be great friends -- apparently unaware that this was standard language for The Family, which even had it printed on cards for a previous breakfast.)
Ross now becomes a fast friend and companion of Lindell, as seen in these pics spanning 2017-2020.
Politically, Lindell is now on board.
Carson tells Trump about Lindell, the Trump campaign sets up a meeting for Aug. 15, 2016.
The day before their meeting, Lindell writes some checks.
Religiously, however, Lindell isn't yet the guy we know today.
So Ross urges Lindell to participate in a program for troubled military vets...that uses Jesus to help them...run by another guy Lindell met at the 2016 prayer breakfast.
(Quick side note: I notice Lindell says that before he found Jesus he still had "fits of rage."
One of my emails requesting comment had a mistake in it. Throughout our call he called me "scumbag," "pond scum" and accused me of lying. Anyway, back to Jesus...)
Lindell says he's reluctant to do the Jesus program Larry Ross recommends.
He does it anyway, but he doesn't have hope it'll work...
...until he attends the NEXT National Prayer Breakfast...
...where the current U.S. Senate chaplain sets Mike Lindell on his current path.
Lindell doesn't specify what Black said, but Black told the prayer breakfast God intervenes in the world, doing stuff, answering prayers, etc...
...giving Mike Lindell reason to believe he was part of God's plan.
It worked.
I want to add that Mike Lindell's story is just part of a bigger @TYTInvestigats series based on internal Family documents we've obtained.
I hope you'll read our high-altitude view of what we're finding, and how a handful of Democrats are enabling it:
tyt.com/stories/7K5fbf…
If you haven't already, check out the definitive books and Netflix docu-series on this subject by @JeffSharlet.
And if you're wondering whether Mike Lindell got took: salon.com/2021/09/03/mik…
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