CEO MyPillow Mike Lindell’s support for Donald Trump’s lies about the election has caused him to face legal problems in Denver, where he is being sued for defamation by a former Dominion Voting Systems employee. Eric Coomer, who used to work for the election vendor, accused Lindell of defaming him with his crazy claims about the rigged 2020 presidential election. In a situation that is already stupid, things got even stupider this week when it was reported that Lindell’s lawyer used generative AI to write a legal brief.
U.S. District Court Judge Nina Wang is trying to figure out why Lindell’s lawyer, Christopher Kachouroff, decided to file a court brief with numerous fabricated legal citations. In a recent filing, Wang asked why Kachouroff and Lindell’s other lawyer, Jennifer DeMaster, allowed such an unprofessional thing to happen.
The brief Kachouroff submitted was full of “almost thirty” obvious errors, including citation of non-existent cases, according to court documents. Despite being given the chance to explain, Kachouroff refused to clarify why there were so many mistakes in the brief.
Kachouroff initially claimed that the errors were his mistakes, saying, “Your Honor, I may have made a mistake and paraphrased and quoted by mistake. I didn’t mean to mislead the Court. I don’t think the quote is far from what you read to me.” However, Kachouroff later admitted that the errors were due to a chatbot generating the brief.
Wang has given Kachouroff and DeMaster until May 5th to explain how this legal mishap occurred. If they fail to provide a sufficient explanation, Wang says they will be referred for disciplinary proceedings for violating professional conduct rules. Gizmodo has reached out to Kachouroff and DeMaster for comment.