All the political donations made by employees of Konnech – the election management company whose CEO was recently arrested for allegedly storing information on election workers on servers in China – went to support Democratic candidates, The National Pulse can reveal.
The unearthed political associations of the company, according to a Federal Election Commission (FEC) database, follows the arrest of Konnech CEO Eugene Yu. The Michigan-based company, which managed software responsible for organizing poll workers in Los Angeles County, is now “part of an investigation into the possible theft of personal identifying information of those workers,” according to authorities.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office explained that the firm was “supposed to securely maintain the data and that only United States citizens and permanent residents have access to it,” but instead secretly stored it on servers in China.
The National Pulse can also reveal nearly 50 political donations made by Konnech staff, including Eugene Yu, which exclusively went to Democratic candidates. 49 donations totaling $1,897.69 came from three employees in addition to Yu: Business Development Manager Laura Potter; Product Director Eric Staats; and Chief Operation Officer Aaron Brown.
Brown, for example, made a $75 donation to President Joe Biden’s campaign on October 30th, 2020 despite the fact the firm has received federal and state grants to assist with election infrastructure since 2010. Staats donated twice to the 2020 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders.
Other candidates that have enjoyed support from Konnech include Alabama Senator Doug Jones, Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff, and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate Tim Kaine.
Yu, according to the FEC database, has issued five political donations totaling $1,550 to two Democratic candidates: congressional hopeful Janice Winfrey and Senator Debbie Stabenow.
The unearthed donations follow a recent lawsuit filed by Konnech against election integrity organization True the Vote, which alleged the company was “owned by the Chinese Communist Party.” A judge granted Konnech a temporary restraining order against True the Vote leaders Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips.
