as part of a legal settlement.<\/a><\/p>\nThe internal probe was focused on accusations that Neff misled supervisors at the district attorney\u2019s office about the role of election deniers in his investigation, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the case who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.<\/p>\n
Neff also allegedly withheld information about potential biases in the case from a grand jury, according to the two officials.<\/p>\n
In a civil lawsuit filed last year, Neff said the internal review by the D.A.\u2019s office cleared him of wrongdoing. The two officials familiar with the probe who spoke on the condition of anonymity disputed Neff\u2019s characterization of the findings.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman declined to comment or provide the results of the investigation into Neff, which the officials said was conducted by an outside law firm that generated a report on the case. Neff\u2019s attorney also did not provide a copy of the report.<\/p>\n
A Department of Justice spokesman declined to comment.<\/p>\n
Neff\u2019s attorney, Tom Yu \u2014 no relation to the Konnech CEO \u2014 said his client had no obligation to provide background information about the origins of the case to the grand jury.<\/p>\n
Neff\u2019s appointment comes as President Trump continues to remake the DOJ in his own image by appointing political loyalists with no criminal law background as U.S. attorneys in New Jersey and Virginia and seeking prosecutions of his political enemies, such as former FBI Director James Comey.<\/p>\n
Trump has never recanted his false claim that he won the 2020 election.<\/p>\n
When then-L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gasc\u00f3n announced the charges against Konnech in 2020, Trump said the progressive prosecutor would become a \u201cNational hero on the Right if he got to the bottom of this aspect of the Voting Fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Konnech case was centered on contract fraud, not voter fraud or ballot rigging. Six weeks after the charges were filed, the case disintegrated.<\/p>\n
The D.A.\u2019s office cited Neff\u2019s over-reliance on evidence provided by True the Vote, the group that pushed the unfounded Chinese government conspiracies about Konnech and also appeared in a film that spread claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.<\/p>\n
Gasc\u00f3n initially denied that True the Vote was involved in the case, but weeks later, a D.A.\u2019s office spokesman said a report from the group\u2019s co-founder, Gregg Phillips, sparked the prosecution. Phillips testified in court in July 2022 that it was Neff who first contacted him about Konnech.<\/p>\n
The two officials who spoke to The Times said that Neff withheld True the Vote\u2019s role from high-level D.A.\u2019s office staff, including Gasc\u00f3n, when presenting the case.<\/p>\n
Gasc\u00f3n declined an interview request, noting he is named in Neff\u2019s pending lawsuit, which is slated for trial in early 2026.<\/p>\n
Neff\u2019s attorney insisted the case against Konnech was solid.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was let go because Trump tweeted a statement of \u2018Go George Go\u2019,\u201d the attorney said. \u201cThat\u2019s why Eugene Yu was let go. Because Gasc\u00f3n was so scared he was going to lose votes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calls and emails to an attorney who previously represented Eugene Yu were not returned.<\/p>\n
In his lawsuit, Neff claimed he had evidence that \u201cKonnech used third-party contractors based in China and failed to abide by security procedures\u201d to protect L.A. County poll worker data. The evidence was not attached as an exhibit in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
A DOJ spokesperson declined to describe Neff\u2019s job duties. His name appears on a number of lawsuits filed in recent months against states that have refused to turn over voter registration lists to the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
Neff is also involved in a suit filed against the Fulton County clerk\u2019s office in Georgia seeking records related to the 2020 election, records show.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws,\u201d Asst. Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, the California conservative who now leads the civil rights division, said in a recent statement. \u201cIf states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dhillon declined to comment through a DOJ spokesman.<\/p>\n
The voting section \u201cenforces the civil provisions of the federal laws that protect the right to vote, including the Voting Rights Act,\u201d according to the DOJ\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
It does not appear that Neff has any background working on cases related to federal election law. He first became an L.A. County prosecutor in 2013 and spent years handling local crime cases out of the Pomona courthouse. He was promoted and reassigned to the Public Integrity Division, which investigates corruption issues, in 2020, according to his lawsuit.<\/p>\n
While there, he handled only two prosecutions related to elections. One was the Konnech case. The other involved allegations of election rigging against a Compton city council member.<\/p>\n
In August 2021, Isaac Galvan, a Democrat, was charged with conspiring to commit election fraud after he allegedly worked to direct voters from outside his council district to cast ballots for him. Galvan won the race by just one vote, but was booted from office<\/a> when a judge determined at least four improper ballots had been cast.<\/p>\nGalvan\u2019s criminal case is still pending; he recently pleaded guilty to charges in a separate corruption and bribery case in federal court. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney\u2019s office in Los Angeles said there was no overlap between the D.A.\u2019s election rigging case and the bribery case against Galvan. Federal prosecutors are not reviewing the Konnech case, the spokesman said.<\/p>\n
Court filings show Neff was involved in Galvan\u2019s L.A. County case, but the prosecution was led by a more senior attorney.<\/p>\n
Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School who served in the civil rights division during the Obama administration, said section chiefs normally have decades of experience in the area of law they\u2019re meant to supervise.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest problem with somebody with Neff\u2019s history is the giant screaming red flag that involves filing a prosecution based on unreliable evidence,\u201d Levitt said. \u201cThat\u2019s not something any prosecutor should do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neff\u2019s attorney, 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 due to his involvement in the Konnech case.<\/p>\n
\u201cEric got the job because he\u2019s qualified to get the job. He didn\u2019t get the job for any other reason. He got the job because he\u2019s an excellent advocate,\u201d Yu said. \u201cI think the Justice Department is very fortunate to have Eric.\u201d<\/p>\n
Times Staff Writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eric Neff\u2019s tenure at the Los Angeles County district attorney\u2019s office ended after he was placed on administrative…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1436,45494,7359,59599,25662,62879,10482,348,62880,62878,48,52,51,1846,47,50,49,62877,346,26079,1519],"class_list":{"0":"post-118658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-case","9":"tag-d-a","10":"tag-district-attorney","11":"tag-election-denier","12":"tag-election-official","13":"tag-eugene-yu","14":"tag-george-gascon","15":"tag-investigation","16":"tag-isaac-galvan","17":"tag-konnech","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-la-headlines","20":"tag-la-news","21":"tag-lawsuit","22":"tag-los-angeles","23":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","24":"tag-los-angeles-news","25":"tag-neff","26":"tag-office","27":"tag-prosecution","28":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}