Leaders of the True the Vote, a Texas group that peddled claims rampant fraud dogged the 2020 election, were arrested Monday after a judge deemed them in contempt of court.
Catherine Engelbrecht and former board member Gregg Phillips, who founded the group, were marshaled into a holding cell after they failed to comply with a judge’s demand that they divulge the name of the person who helped them tap into election software company Konnech’s computer systems.
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“We need to know his name,” said Konnech lawyer Dean Pamphilis, per the Texas Tribune. “We haven’t heard any testimony that his confidentiality status has anything to do with this case. It’s a complete red herring they’ve manufactured to keep us from the truth.”
Engelbrecht and Phillips have claimed that their source was an FBI informant, though they have not yet presented evidence to back that up, according to the Washington Post. They were reportedly given until 9 a.m. Monday to name the person and declined to do so, prompting U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt, a Reagan appointee, to hold them in contempt.
“We will be held in jail until we agree to give up the name of a person we believe was not covered under the terms of the judge’s [order],” Engelbrecht said in a statement.
Konnech is suing Engelbrecht and Phillips for defamation over claims that the company allowed the Chinese government to access the personal information of roughly 2 million U.S. election workers — something the company adamantly denies.
Last month, the founder and chief executive of the company, Eugene Yu, was arrested on suspicion of theft. Prior to his arrest, True the Vote accused Yu, an immigrant, of essentially conducting intelligence work for China. Some of the justifications for his arrest appeared to echo some of True the Vote’s accusations, the Washington Post reported.
His legal team is seeking to get the charges dropped.
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Both Engelbrecht and Phillips have long championed claims of election denialism. They served as executive producers on 2000 Mules, a heavily disputed documentary by conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza that claimed Democratic-linked groups tapped “mules” to dump false ballots into drop boxes illegally. The claims have been roundly dismissed by election experts and officials.
Phillips had also boosted claims that he had proof over 3 million illegal votes had been cast in the 2016 election — an assertion amplified by former President Donald Trump in a bid to diminish his popular vote loss in that election.
