A district judge in Houston found the leaders of True Vote in contempt of court after a chaotic hearing in which they failed to provide specifics about the alleged evidence they’ve used to target election vendor Konnech for months.
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.
In late September, the group’s attorney — Brock Akers, an attorney in Houston who’d initially represented True the Vote in the matter — 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.Phillips said Hasson did not directly access any Konnech data that night in January 2021.
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.