What a contorted tale of myths, misdirection, and pure imagination from people who are not stable and are familiar with reality. They are delusional and that the maga crowd believed their unsupported fiction is stunning. Enjoy the read, I can see why the judge lost his temper with them, I would have lost it a lot earlier. Hugs
Testimony from Gregg Phillips and Catherine Engelbrecht muddies explanation of how they acquired evidence used to target election vendor Konnech — and who helped.
Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote, at a U.S. Senate hearing in 2015
Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
After a chaotic day of testimony on Thursday, a federal judge in Texas found Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips — known as leaders of the group True the Vote — in contempt of court. They are facing accusations of defamation and computer crimes from a company at the center of a viral right-wing social media campaign engineered by the conservative voting organization.
The judge informed the pair they would face jail time if they do not comply with the terms of a court order by Monday at 9 a.m.
“I expect both defendants to be present,” said U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt, a Ronald Reagan appointee, looking at their table. Marshals, he said, would be ready to arrest them.
Thursday’s finding of contempt was the latest in a string of twists in the civil suit filed in September by Konnech, a Michigan-based company that provides poll worker management software to elections offices.
In filings and testimony, the basic facts and plot lines have shifted from week to week, often producing unexplained contradictions. True the Vote’s telling involves a lengthy middle-of-the-night hotel rendezvous, double-crossing federal agents, confidential informants, and security threats on two continents.
Konnech’s lawsuit, on the other hand, alleges that True the Vote’s baseless and racist accusations against the company’s CEO, Eugene Yu, forced him and his family to flee their home in fear for their lives and damaged the company’s business. Meanwhile, Yu was arrested and charged by the Los Angeles district attorney on allegations of storing government data in China, in breach of its contract, that appear similar to at least some of the allegations True the Vote has made, and Los Angeles officials have said they received an initial tip from Phillips.
For years, Engelbrecht and Phillips have come under fire for promoting election conspiracy theories while offering scant evidence to support them. But their current campaign against Konnech is forcing them to back up what they’ve said since August on far-right social networks and platforms in the more skeptical setting of a federal courtroom.
Thursday’s hearing, which took place on the 11th floor of the federal court building in downtown Houston, was the first time either Engelbrecht or Phillips have appeared in court in the matter. Engelbrecht and Phillips testified only after the judge demanded they do so — Hoyt needed their testimony so he could rule on whether the pair should be held in contempt of court for refusing, for weeks, to hand over information he’d ordered they produce to the plaintiffs.
At issue is the name and contact information of individuals Phillips and Engelbrecht have alleged were present at a Dallas hotel meeting in January 2021, when True the Vote was allegedly given proof Konnech was improperly storing the personal data of “millions” of U.S. poll workers on a server in China. True the Vote then used that information to fuel months of vaguely defined accusations about the company and Yu in podcasts and appearances.
Phillips and Engelbrecht repeatedly claimed Yu was an agent of the Communist Party of China. China, they said, had used the poll worker data to influence the 2020 election. The claims have powered weeks of fundraising for True the Vote, and Phillips and Engelbrecht have enlisted their followers to do additional research on Konnech. It’s an undertaking they’ve named “The Tiger Project.”
True the Vote’s legal team had already, in a court hearing earlier this month, produced one name: Mike Hasson.
Not that they wanted to.
“On behalf of my clients we don’t want to release the name of this individual,” True the Vote attorney Brock Akers told Judge Hoyt in an Oct. 6 hearing. The “analyst” was, he said, in “danger from forces of the Chinese Communist party.” Hoyt didn’t buy it, and demanded Akers hand over the name, which Akers wrote on a yellow legal pad and read aloud for the record.
True the Vote would only provide Hasson’s name, though. Asked Thursday for contact information or more detailed information about Hasson’s identity, Phillips told the court he had no way of contacting Hasson and had only communicated with him through unspecified messaging “apps.” He had not seen Hasson, he said, since the night at the hotel in January 2021.
Shown a photo of a man who Konnech’s attorneys believed to be Hasson, Phillips said he didn’t recognize him. Shown the same photo, Engelbrecht also demurred. “My general recollection is that he was younger than I, and Caucasian. But beyond that I really couldn’t tell you,” said Engelbrecht.
On Friday, True the Vote’s attorney’s moved to seal the photo, which Konnech’s attorneys had entered as an exhibit, “to safeguard the privacy of” the man depicted, in the event he is not indeed Mike Hasson.
Konnech’s attorneys — Dean Pamphilis and Nathan Richardson of the Houston office of Kasowitz Benson Torres — were convinced Hasson hadn’t worked alone, given True the Vote’s insistence over weeks of broadcasts that the work had been done by “analysts” and “guys” in the plural.
The attorneys pressed the pair for more names.
Phillips, who took the stand first, said one other “analyst” had been present, though he said he didn’t believe this man had been involved in Hasson’s research. Phillips refused to name the man or describe the reason for his presence — as did Engelbrecht, who took the stand next.
“Every name I give you gets doxxed and harassed,” Engelbrecht said to Richardson. “I know what happened to Mike after his name was released and he’s in hiding.”
At that, the judge interjected. “Excuse me,” Hoyt said. “How do you know he’s in hiding?”
“I’ve been … it’s been rumored. In fairness, it’s been rumored,” she responded.
She and Phillips told the court the second unnamed person was a “confidential informant” for the FBI. Phillips told the court the man would be at risk of harm from drug cartels on the border if identified, refusing to elaborate. Despite prompting from the judge, who expressed disbelief at the need for such discretion, both Phillips and Engelbrecht refused to name the person.
Hoyt has now given True the Vote’s attorneys until a Monday morning hearing to disclose the man’s name to Konnech’s attorneys, or Engelbrecht and Phillips will be held in jail until it is released.
Shortly after the hearing, Phillips announced Hoyt’s decision on Truth Social. “Doing the right thing isn’t always easy but it’s always right,” he posted. “We were held in contempt of court because we refused to burn a confidential informant or our researchers. We go to jail Monday unless we comply.”
The post is thematically consistent with the image Engelbrecht and Phillips attempted to craft in the courtroom: That they are the victims of a smear campaign and have attempted in good faith to address election vulnerabilities, even at the expense of their own physical safety.
In addition to multiple lawyers, a paralegal, and a small handful of True the Vote associates, Engelbrecht and Phillips were accompanied on Thursday by two security guards. Dressed in suits with matching American flag lapel pins, the pair stood at attention on either side of an alcove in the hallway, where Engelbrecht, Phillips and a few others had gathered before the hearing.
Staring straight ahead, the two men pretended not to hear the group’s conversation, loud enough to be audible throughout most of the hallway.
“I’m the sacrificial lamb,” Phillips said, before being comforted by his attorney, who told Phillips he would seek to take the case “as incrementally as possible.” Later a staffer offered her reassurance to others: “She’ll get her revenge,” she told them, apparently referring to Engelbrecht. “They always do.”
The bodyguards would then spend much of the day accompanying the small swarm of True the Vote associates in and out — and in and out — of the courtroom. The group’s attorneys, who were routinely admonished by Hoyt for flouting basic courtroom procedure, repeatedly requested breaks to consult with Engelbrecht and Phillips in whispers as they determined next moves.
On one break, Engelbrecht and her attorneys were gathered at a table in the courthouse cafeteria. I approached to ask Engelbrecht for a comment — Votebeat was publishing an unrelated story about True the Vote’s backing of an effort to monitor Arizona drop boxes that afternoon, and that morning the group had been sued for defamation in Georgia — only to be blocked by the second security guard, a tall, thin man wearing black running shoes with his suit.
“I’m sorry, I can’t let you go any further,” he said, stopping me a few feet from where they sat, citing unspecified “security concerns.”
Later, Engelbrecht would sit next to me in the courtroom gallery, unattended by security, having recognized me from prior coverage. “There is so much more to this,” she said, promising to say more when True the Vote’s present legal situation cleared. “It’s not what it seems.”
Neither she nor her team took additional questions from the press.
Engelbrecht and Phillips’ Thursday testimony offered the most insight into the tangled relationship between True the Vote, Konnech, and the district attorney of Los Angeles than any development so far. But the latest hearing highlighted how some aspects of True the Vote’s story have shifted from initial court filings, and how some of their answers in court conflict with their prior public descriptions of events.
In an event called “The Pit” held in Phoenix in mid-August and live-streamed on Right Side Broadcasting, Phillips and Engelbrecht told participants they’d “stumbled upon” hard evidence of a Chinese communist plot to influence the 2020 election. It revolved, they said, around a company called Konnech.
The allegations hit right-wing social media like a bomb, sparking calls to county offices that had contracted with Konnech. Over several weeks in August and September, Engelbrecht and Phillips repeatedly called attention to their fight against Konnech in podcasts and interviews.
In an Aug. 23 episode of the Elijah Streams Podcast (which tells listeners its “mission is to encourage you in your faith through a unique blend of patriotism and prophecy”),
Phillips describes a meeting with some of his paid consultants. “My guys invited me to Dallas on a Friday night. We met in a hotel room, towels under the doors,” he said, nonchalantly.
“Really?” interviewer Steve Shultz asked, impressed at the spectacle. “Wow.”
“It was pretty weird,” Phillips offered in response. “It was like some kind of a James Bond kind of thing or some sort of weirdness like that.”
He told Shultz he arrived at the hotel close to midnight. One of the analysts plugged his laptop into the hotel TV, and the group looked at “rows and rows” of data for hours.
“I’m looking at this live. By 4:30 in the morning I was pretty well scared this was bad,” he said, expressing absolute confidence in the skills of those who’d helped him get the information. “Man, those are the best analysts in the country. In the world, maybe.”
As he tells the story in interviews, events, and podcasts, Phillips often describes aspects of the night differently. Occasionally, his versions contradict. In one, for example, he said he and the others in the hotel room that night were able to crack into Konnech’s data because they guessed the password, which had been “password.” In others, he insists there was no password at all, and “no hacking.”
Central to many of the claims made by Engelbrecht and Phillips is a mounting tension with the FBI — an increasingly popular positioning in far right circles, where calls to “Defund the FBI” have seen a swell in popularity given former President Trump’s recent tangle with the agency. In one podcast, Phillips said the group “engaged with [the FBI] as an operational asset in a counterintelligence operation” against Konnech over a period of more than a year and a half before things changed. In another, Phillips claimed the FBI turned on him, accusing him of “stealing the Chinese internet” and threatening to investigate True the Vote. Though the specifics vary, the pair make clear they feel the FBI has not appropriately addressed the extent of their complaints.
“The media, and now possibly even the FBI and other agencies in the federal government are supporting this nonsense. This is crazy,” Phillips said in a Sept. 2 podcast, looking to Engelbrecht for a response. “I agree,” she said.
As the defamation suit got under way, the larger plot points appeared similar in sequence to the facts True the Vote’s lawyers represented to the court, conveyed in dry legal language that was considerably less dramatic.
In late September, the group’s attorney — Brock Akers, an attorney in Houston who’d initially represented True the Vote in the matter — said in a court filing that True the Vote had “turned over data and information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation which had been given to them.” He offered few details as to who had provided the data or by what means.
Then, details began to shift.
In a hearing two weeks later, the same attorney told Judge Hoyt that True the Vote had never been in possession of the data. Mike Hasson, not Phillips or Engelbrecht, Akers said, “actually has the data who then turned it over to the FBI.”
In Phillips’ testimony on Thursday, he said again that he’d spent more than four hours in a Dallas hotel with Hasson and an unnamed third party. From there, his explanations also begin to diverge from the previously established timeline.
When Pamphilis asked Phillips about previous claims that he and “his guys” had broken into Konnech’s data by guessing a simple password, Phillips said he had not personally accessed any information and did not know how the data Hasson showed him had been obtained. Asked if he was told about the existence of a password by someone else, Phillips said he didn’t remember.
“I don’t have recollection,” said Phillips.
Phillips said Hasson did not directly access any Konnech data that night in January 2021. Instead, Phillips said Hasson simply showed him files and screenshots that had been previously gathered. They could not have possibly downloaded the files — which Phillips said totaled “somewhere in the 350-terabyte range” — on hotel internet, Phillips said confidently. Lawyers for Konnech did not remark on the enormousness of the file size. (It takes about 2 billion document pages to amount to 350 terabytes, an amount of data that would fill nearly 1,500 standard laptops.)
Phillips and Engelbrecht told the court that True the Vote and its supporters continued to research Konnech after Hasson revealed what he’d found, relying on “open source” research tools and public records requests sent to Konnech’s government customers. The fruits of this additional probe were shared with the FBI and LA County, they said.
It was the unclear status of these ongoing investigations and acute concern for the safety of confidential FBI informants that prevented them from offering more extensive information as part of their Thursday testimony, both Engelbrecht and Phillips told the court.
Hoyt asked Phillips and Engelbrecht additional questions when attorneys turned over the witnesses. While the judge attempted to clarify whether Phillips and his “analysts” were or were not claiming to have broken through a password, confusion arose as to the provenance of a Truth Social post written by a supporter and “re-Truthed” by Phillips. The poster claimed Phillips and his analysts used a default password to access Konnech’s data, mimicking Phillips’ earlier language. One of True the Vote’s attorneys — John Kiyonaga, who had already been instructed by the judge not to interrupt proceedings — jumped to his feet to object.
“Excuse me, take your seat and don’t get up again,” Hoyt said to Kiyonaga, who continued to protest.
“You are mischaracterizing her testimony, and that is unfair,” Kiyonaga barked.
“Take your seat,” Hoyt said again.
Engelbrecht, as Phillips had before her, ultimately provided no clarity on the existence of a password.
By the end of the hearing, which had lasted for nearly five hours, Hoyt had lost all patience with True the Vote and its team. “I’ve been asked to make a finding of contempt, and that is my finding,” he said. “They are both in contempt of court.”
The ruling came so swiftly that many of those seated at the defense table did not immediately register a reaction. Then, Engelbrecht took a slow breath. A paralegal, seated at the end of the table, stared at the judge. Kiyonaga looked as though he might erupt. True the Vote’s cohort of 12 then quietly left the courtroom, gathering their binders and bags and regrouping to whisper in the hallway.
The next day, Friday, True the Vote attorney Michael Wynn submitted nearly 30 pages of evidence to the court, which he indicated was an effort by his clients to “purge contempt in advance of the hearing” on Monday. None of the documents identify the unnamed person present in the Dallas hotel room, nor do they more specifically identify Mike Hasson.
Among the documents, however, are screenshots of text messages between Engelbrecht and several people True the Vote claims are FBI agents. Few messages sent by the identified agents mention Konnech, though Engelbrecht repeatedly and directly asks for updates on the company. As a whole, the screenshots do little to bolster True the Vote’s version of events.
One set of text messages are between Engelbrecht and a person the documents identify as a San Antonio-based FBI agent named “Kristina,” though the screenshots list her name as “Kaykay.” They show several largely unsuccessful attempts by Engelbrecht to contact the agent in late September and early October.
On Oct. 12 — exactly one month after Konnech filed suit against True the Vote — Engelbrecht wrote her lengthiest correspondence to Kakyay. “We have been drug into a vicious lawsuit filed against us by Konnech,” she wrote in part, before claiming that she, Phillips and Hasson were “all in danger.”
“We have all been doxxed. It is all over the press,” she said. “Lastly, there is the possibility that I have been poisoned.”
Governors across the country are furious about President Biden’s cannabis pardons – but only because the private prison industry is telling them to be mad. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
The economy and inflation rank number 1 as voters’ concerns heading into the midterms, but reports have confirmed that the main driver of inflation is actually just good old-fashioned corporate greed. Corporate price gouging accounts for more than 50% of the price increases that American consumers have experienced in the past two years, yet that’s the one area where absolutely nothing has been done to help consumers. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what’s happening.
Hello Everyone. 7 days ago I made a joyful post about my system being back up in a temporary place using the kitchen table. But when I got to the comments on that post I noticed that only one of the four pictures I tried to put in the post went in. Yes I need to start checking posts after I publish the post. So I took a video of the setup to show everyone. Yes I was speaking but the words are not important, the important thing is the visual of the setup. Best wishes and hugs.
OT: An update on how sick I was. I was really ill with a high fever, but I took Tylenol and it kept the fever down and it broke late last night. But today I have a baseball sized swelling under my arm in my arm pit. It is a swollen lymph node and it is irritatingly painful. I am not so much bothered by it but it freaked Ron out. He did not realize how sick I was yesterday. Hugs
According to a new study, half of Americans are looking into taking on multiple jobs to deal with rising prices. Adrienne Lawrence and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live
“More than half of Americans are considering taking on extra jobs to be able to pay for everyday expenses and meet the rising cost of living as inflation remains high.
Employees in the U.S. are combating the soaring prices of essentials like groceries, housing, and gas by looking for ways to increase their incomes and cut down on expenses, according to a new study by Qualtrics, a software technology company. The survey of more than 1000 full-time employees found that 38% of workers have looked for a second job, while another 14% are planning to do so.
“With budgets tightening, workers are searching for ways to meet the rising cost of living, including finding new jobs,” said Qualtrics Chief Workplace Psychologist Dr. Benjamin Granger.”
Law enforcement officials Texas are saying a new law that allows people to carry handguns without a permit has led to more spontaneous shootings. John Iadarola, Cenk Uygur and Jessica Burbank discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live
These are just some of the ways critics are describing Texas’ new law allowing people to carry handguns in public without a permit—a Republican achievement that many local officials say has already led to a spike in spontaneous shootings in highly populated parts of the state.
“It seems like now there’s been a tipping point where just everybody is armed.”
In one high-profile case earlier this year, Tony Earls “pulled out his handgun and opened fire, hoping to strike a man who had just robbed him and his wife at an A.T.M. in Houston,” The New York Times reported Wednesday.
“Instead, he struck Arlene Alvarez, a 9-year-old girl seated in a passing pickup, killing her.” A grand jury declined to indict Earls, agreeing with his lawyer that “everything about that situation, we believe and contend, was justified under Texas law.” *
At the end of the article you will read what is behind this. A woman demands that the LGBTQ+ materials with stories about or include LGBTQ+ characters be removed and banned from everywhere because “I will not raise kids in a county that has sexual-oriented books on the counter,” she asserted. She told the group they need “to understand that God’s judgment is for Christians and non-Christians, and a fear of the Lord, if it’s not upon you, it will be upon you in hell.” This is not her church and she is not saying her kids shouldn’t be able to read the books, she is demanding that your kids not be able to read them either. Did you notice she goes on to say that judgement is coming for Christians and non-Christians implying that you non-Christians had better live by my church doctrines and rules. Republican elected office holders like DeathSantis have opened the flood gates and let the hyper religious think they now hove more rights than anyone else in the country, in fact they have the right to force you / your family to follow their rules. How long until these people insist you go to their church even if you are not of their religion? In some Islamic countries there is a tax on anyone not Muslim simply to be allowed to exist. First they came for the trans kids, then they came for the entire LGBTQ+, now they are moving the goal to enforcing their “morality from 2,500 years ago” on everyone. Hugs
“I’ve never been sexually assaulted at a drag show, but I have been in church. Twice!” she said, adding that the church “told me it was my fault.”
Jessee Graham going off at the Maury County Board of Trustees Photo: Screenshot
A woman came to a board of trustees meeting and trounced conservative Christians after a county’s library director was driven from his job for refusing to take down a Pride display.
Maury County, Tennessee Library Director Zachary Fox resigned last week after getting pressured by a group of residents who said that the LGBTQ-themed books were inappropriate, according to WSMV-4. Fox said that his last day working would be tomorrow, October 28, but that he would stay until a replacement could be found.
“Coming to this decision has been incredibly difficult, but it is in the best interest of my family and my own health and well being,” he wrote.
Maury County Commissioner Aaron Miller – who runs the local organization Foundation for Liberty and Freedom – was at the center of the controversy, calling on Fox to resign.
“The library invested your tax dollars into a book display for LGBT History Month,” Miller told the Epoch Times. “This was surprising, considering that June is already Pride Month, a period of celebration for the LGBT community.”
Miller said that the materials were “child-targeted.”
“As a father, my line in the sand was crossed when the library exhibited a bright, colorful display of no less than 28 books for this past Pride Month, all of which were written and marketed specifically for minors, especially young children,” he said.
Last night the Maury County Board of Trustees held a meeting that got heated. And one woman – identified as Jessee Graham – is going viral for her righteously angry speech about the people who drove Fox from his job.
“Our town has never seen so much homophobic crap as we have since Miller came along,” Graham said. “These people have been with us this entire time and we have never had a problem with it. They have never done any of the vile and disgusting things that that man and his weird cronies have leaked out of their mouths.”
“I’ve never been sexually assaulted at a drag show, but I have been in church. Twice!” she continued, adding that the church “told me it was my fault.”
She called out the group’s homophobia, accusing them of wanting to “completely annihilate a group of human beings who just wanna exist.” She said that if any of her four kids are “part of this community, they will be lucky because there is not a whole lot of families that would love their child unconditionally.”
“And the fact that they want to take that away from children, that is child abuse, to immediately tell your child that he is wrong for feeling like he doesn’t belong in conversion therapy.”
🔥🔥 MUST-WATCH: “I’ve never been sexually assaulted at a drag show, but I have been at church. TWICE! The men told me it was MY fault.”
MAURY COUNTY library board – local mom rips homophobe County Commissioner Aaron Miller, whose ignorant hate chased out the library director📚 pic.twitter.com/D6HrzugANN
Earlier this month, a woman who introduced herself as Stephanie went on a diatribe at a meeting discussing LGBTQ books in the library system in Maury County that was caught on video.
“I will not raise kids in a county that has sexual-oriented books on the counter,” she asserted. She told the group they need “to understand that God’s judgment is for Christians and non-Christians, and a fear of the Lord, if it’s not upon you, it will be upon you in hell.”
The woman said she represented “every law-abiding, taxpaying citizen here in Maury County,” then told her would-be constituents, “you are blind” not to see that “when perversion permeates our county, that’s when the devil gets our children.”
“Obviously, revelation prophecies are occurring right before our eyes,” she said.
Scottie's Playtime 