A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated a contempt order by a federal judge that landed True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht and veteran election-fraud investigator Gregg Phillips in jail for more than a week.
The ruling Tuesday came three weeks after U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt ordered Engelbrecht and Phillips jailed without bond in Houston, Texas, for refusing to disclose a confidential source in their probe of evidence that a Michigan-based election software company, Konnech, was storing the personal data of U.S. poll workers on servers in China. Hoyt’s order was made in a defamation lawsuit against the two filed in September by Konnech CEO Eugene Yu. However, only weeks after the suit was filed, Yu was arrested and charged by Los Angeles County prosecutors for allegedly storing election worker data on servers in China.
“The Fifth Circuit’s powerful ruling lays bare the excesses of Konnech, their attorneys, and the lower court,” True the Vote said in a statement. “The impermissible demands of Konnech, which were rubber stamped by the district court, caused great harm to True the Vote as an organization, as well as Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, who were imprisoned for over a week by Konnech and the court’s actions.”
True the Vote – whose investigation of ballot trafficking was featured in the film “2000 Mules” – said the rights of Engelbrecht and Phillips “to openly speak on matters of public interest were impeded under the color of authority.”
“But hear them clearly today; the investigation of Konnech and their activities continues across America.”