Trump’s top voting rights lawyer led L.A. election conspiracy case

Eric Neff’s tenure in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office ended after he was placed on administrative leave in 2022 amid accusations of misconduct in the prosecution of the CEO of Konnech, a software company that election conspiracy theorists say was under the influence of the Chinese government.

Now, three years later, Neff is one of the Trump administration’s top election observers.

Late last year, his name began appearing in lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, listed as the polling unit’s “acting chief.”

Neff’s meeting, first reported by Mother Jones, has sparked new scrutiny of his work in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

The Times interviewed several former colleagues of Neff, who revealed new details about the allegations of misconduct stemming from the Konnech affair, and expressed alarm that someone with virtually no experience in federal election law had been appointed to a leadership position.

Neff led the 2022 investigation into Konnech, a small Michigan company whose software is used by election officials in several major cities. In a criminal complaint, Neff accused the company’s CEO, Eugene Yu, of fraud and embezzlement, alleging that the company stored election workers’ information on a server based in China, a violation of its contract with the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office.

Six weeks after filing a complaint, prosecutors dropped the case and opened an investigation into “irregularities” and bias in the way evidence was presented against Konnech, the prosecutor’s office said in a 2022 statement.

The county paid Konnech $5 million and joined a motion to find Yu innocent of the facts. as part of a legal settlement.

The internal investigation focused on accusations that Neff misled supervisors in the DA’s office about the role of election deniers in his investigation, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the matter who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Neff also allegedly withheld information from the grand jury about potential bias in the case, according to both officials.

In a civil suit filed last year, Neff said the internal review by the prosecutor’s office cleared him of any wrongdoing. The two officials familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity disputed Neff’s characterization of the findings.

A spokesperson for Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman declined to comment or provide the results of the investigation into Neff, which officials said was conducted by an outside law firm that generated a report on the matter. Neff’s attorney also did not provide a copy of the report.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.

Neff’s attorney, Tom Yu — no relation to the Konnech CEO — said his client had no obligation to provide background information about the case’s origins to the grand jury.

Neff’s appointment comes as President Trump continues to reshape the DOJ in his own image by appointing political loyalists with no experience in criminal law as U.S. attorneys in New Jersey and Virginia and seeking to prosecute his political enemies, such as former FBI Director James Comey.

Trump has never retracted his false claim that he won the 2020 election.

When then-LA County Dist. Atty. George Gascón announced the charges against Konnech in 2020, Trump said the progressive prosecutor would become a “right-wing national hero if he got to the bottom of this aspect of election fraud.”

The Konnech case focused on contract fraud, not voter fraud or election rigging. Six weeks after charges were filed, the case disintegrated.

The prosecutor’s office cited Neff’s overreliance on evidence provided by True the Vote, the group that pushed baseless Chinese government conspiracies about Konnech and also appeared in a film that spread claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Gascón initially denied that True the Vote was involved in the case, but a few weeks later, the prosecutor’s office spokesperson said that a report from the group’s co-founder, Gregg Phillips, had prompted the prosecution. Phillips testified in court in July 2022 that it was Neff who first contacted him about Konnech.

The two officials who spoke to the Times said Neff hid True the Vote’s role from high-level staff in the DA’s office, including Gascón, when presenting the case.

Gascón declined an interview request, noting that he is named in Neff’s ongoing trial, which is scheduled for trial in early 2026.

Neff’s lawyer insisted the case against Konnech was strong.

“He was released because Trump tweeted a statement like ‘Go George Go,'” the lawyer said. “That’s why Eugene Yu was fired. Because Gascón was so afraid of losing votes.”

Calls and emails to an attorney who previously represented Eugene Yu were not returned.

In his lawsuit, Neff claimed he had evidence that “Konnech used third-party contractors based in China and failed to follow security procedures” to protect Los Angeles County election workers’ data. The evidence was not included as an exhibit at trial.

A DOJ spokesperson declined to describe Neff’s duties. His name appears on a number of lawsuits filed in recent months against states that have refused to turn over voter rolls to the Trump administration.

Neff is also involved in a lawsuit filed against the Fulton County Clerk’s Office in Georgia to obtain documents related to the 2020 election, records show.

“We will not allow states to compromise the integrity and efficiency of elections by refusing to follow our federal election laws,” said Asst. Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, the California conservative who now heads the Civil Rights Division, said in a recent statement. “If states fail to fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will. »

Dhillon declined to comment through a DOJ spokesperson.

The voting section “enforces the civil provisions of federal laws that protect the right to vote, including the Voting Rights Act,” according to the DOJ website.

It does not appear that Neff has any experience in cases related to federal election law. He first became a Los Angeles County district attorney in 2013 and spent years handling local crime cases from the Pomona courthouse. He was promoted and reassigned to the Public Integrity Division, which investigates corruption matters, in 2020, according to his lawsuit.

During his time there, he handled only two election-related prosecutions. One of them was the Konnech affair. The other involved allegations of voter fraud against a Compton City Council member.

In August 2021, Isaac Galvan, a Democrat, was charged with conspiracy to commit voter fraud after allegedly working to influence voters outside his district to vote for him. Galvan won the race by just one vote, but was started from desktop when a judge determined that at least four irregular ballots had been cast.

Galvan’s criminal case is still pending; he recently pleaded guilty to charges in a separate corruption and bribery case in federal court. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles said there was no overlap between the prosecutor’s election fraud case and the corruption case against Galvan. Federal prosecutors are not looking into the Konnech case, the spokesperson said.

Court records show that Neff was involved in the Los Angeles County Galvan case, but the prosecution was led by a more experienced attorney.

Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School who worked in the civil rights division during the Obama administration, said section heads normally have decades of experience in the area of ​​law they are supposed to oversee.

“The biggest problem with someone with Neff’s history is the giant red flag that involves filing charges based on unreliable evidence,” Levitt said. “It’s not something a prosecutor should do.”

Neff’s lawyer, Yu, scoffed at the idea that his client was not experienced enough for his new role in the Trump administration, or that he was selected because of his involvement in the Konnech affair.

“Eric got the job because he’s qualified to get it. He didn’t get the job for any other reason. He got the job because he’s a great advocate,” Yu said. “I think the Justice Department is very lucky to have Eric.”

Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.