{"id":1676459,"date":"2022-10-06T16:17:56","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T20:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1676459"},"modified":"2022-10-06T16:19:39","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T20:19:39","slug":"tech-firm-told-the-fbi-it-didnt-store-u-s-poll-workers-data-on-chinese-servers-as-l-a-da-alleges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tech-firm-told-the-fbi-it-didnt-store-u-s-poll-workers-data-on-chinese-servers-as-l-a-da-alleges\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Firm Told The FBI It Didn\u2019t Store U.S. Poll Workers\u2019 Data On Chinese Servers, As L.A. DA Alleges"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">38<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftech-firm-told-the-fbi-it-didnt-store-u-s-poll-workers-data-on-chinese-servers-as-l-a-da-alleges%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1676459&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>Either the FBI or the Los Angeles District Attorney\u2019s office flubbed a major investigation into the election poll workers data company Konnech, whose CEO Eugene Yu was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/10\/04\/technology\/election-software-arrested.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">arrested<\/a> on Tuesday, or a deeper probe remains ongoing, details from a bond hearing held earlier today in a Michigan court suggest.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In a press release on Tuesday, L.A. County District Attorney George Gascon announced that Yu had been taken into custody on \u201csuspicion of theft of personal identifying information\u201d by the Meridian Township Police Department, near Yu\u2019s home in central Michigan. The L.A. County\u2019s D.A. Office, which is seeking Yu\u2019s extradition to Los Angeles, explained in its <a href=\"https:\/\/da.lacounty.gov\/media\/news\/head-election-worker-management-company-arrested-connection-theft-personal-data\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announcement<\/a> of Yu\u2019s arrest that the CEO\u2019s business, Konnech, \u201cdistributes and sells its proprietary PollChief software\u201d that is used to manage election workers\u2019 confidential information.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnder its $2.9 million, five-year contract with the county, Konnech was supposed to securely maintain the data and that only United States citizens and permanent residents have access to it,\u201d the press release noted.\u00a0But \u201cDistrict Attorney investigators found that in contradiction to the contract, information was stored on servers in the People\u2019s Republic of China.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this morning, however, Yu\u2019s attorney, Mark Kriger, told Michigan\u2019s 55th District Court Judge Donald Allen, Jr., that the charge is false, adding that he had an affidavit signed by Konnech\u2019s Director of IT attesting that \u201cthere was no data stored in a Chinese server.\u201d\u00a0Yu\u2019s lawyer further explained that his client had been meeting voluntarily with the FBI over the past month and that during one of those meetings, the Director of IT told the FBI that no data was stored on a Chinese server, but rather that \u201ceverything has been in the U.S., either in Lansing, East Lansing, or backed-up on the Microsoft Cloud.\u201d\u00a0Kriger then stressed that since the Director of IT made those representations to the FBI, it \u201cwould be a crime if false.\u201d\u00a0Further, according to Yu\u2019s lawyer, the FBI was not conducting a criminal investigation into Konnech, but rather the bureau was pursuing an investigation of a data breach outside the company.<\/p>\n<p>It is difficult to reconcile Kriger\u2019s claims with D.A. Gascon\u2019s assertion in his press release from earlier this week that his investigators found \u201cinformation was stored on servers in the People\u2019s Republic of China.\u201d\u00a0What that evidence is, however, remains unclear, with Yu\u2019s attorney telling the court he had not yet seen the state court indictment, but understood it alleged a claim for \u201cembezzlement\u201d related to the election data contract.\u00a0Kriger then doubled down on the Director of IT\u2019s statement that data was not stored in China, raising the question of whether the L.A. D.A. has targeted an innocent man.<\/p>\n<p>Kriger\u2019s representations about the FBI\u2019s involvement also prove baffling, as the Detroit criminal attorney told Judge Allen that the FBI had indicated there was no federal criminal investigation into Konnech related to the data breach.\u00a0Rather, Yu\u2019s attorney presented the FBI\u2019s involvement as related to a data breach that Konnech blamed on True the Vote, whom he framed as a \u201cfar-right organization\u201d involved in the \u201cStop the Steal\u201d movement.\u00a0According to Yu\u2019s attorney, True the Vote \u201chacked\u201d Konnech\u2019s system and then released private information about poll workers, leading Konnech to sue True the Vote civilly.<\/p>\n<p>But L.A.\u2019s leftist D.A. is unlikely to find evidence coming from True the Vote credible, and in any event, his press release spoke of the D.A. investigators uncovering the evidence.\u00a0So, did the FBI accept Yu\u2019s statements at face value and focus on investigating the True the Vote organization, ignoring potentially incriminating evidence about Konnech\u2019s servers?\u00a0Or did the FBI investigate and confirm Konnech\u2019s representations?\u00a0If so, the L.A. D.A.\u2019s office will have some explaining to do.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Another possible option remains, however:\u00a0The FBI discovered the alleged China server and coordinated with the L.A. D.A.\u2019s office to obtain an arrest of Yu while a federal investigation continues.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At this stage it is impossible to know the extent of evidence the L.A. County prosecutor has in support of his allegation that Konnech used a server in China or the veracity of those allegations. It is also impossible to know yet whether the FBI played a part in the recent arrest of Yu or had blindingly accepted the word of Konnech\u2019s Director of IT.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For now, though, having succeeded on his motion, Yu will be released after posting $100,000 cash and a $1,000,000 bond, pending his extradition to California.\u00a0Ingham County prosecutor Nicole Matusko agreed to the release, with multiple requirements, such as that Yu surrender his passport and be required to wear a tether, after confirming that when arrested on Tuesday, Yu had not been attempting to flee the state; rather, he was heading to the airport to travel to Houston for a hearing on in his civil case against True the Vote.\u00a0True the Vote, for its part, sees Yu\u2019s arrest as vindication of its claims of a China connection. But it will be much longer before the country will know the truth.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Margot Cleveland is The Federalist&#8217;s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. <\/p>\n<p>Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize\u2014the law school\u2019s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. <\/p>\n<p>As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Either the FBI or the Los Angeles District Attorney\u2019s office flubbed a major investigation into the election poll workers data company Konnech, whose CEO Eugene Yu was arrested on Tuesday,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1676459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1676459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1676459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1676459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1676459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}