A right-wing influencer has released 2022 messages from a private Telegram group chat showing that QAnon figures seemingly coordinated efforts to target Konnech, an election software company, and have election denial organization True the Vote convey their supposed “intel” to law enforcement.

In 2022, True the Vote collaborated with QAnon influencers, with QAnon figures working on some of the organization’s projects, and its leadership appearing on QAnon-affiliated shows and lauding the supposed research abilities of the “Anons” (a term for QAnon supporters), including floating the idea that True the Vote would pass along Anons’ supposed research to law enforcement and sheriffs groups that partnered with the organization.

As part of that collaboration, True the Vote invited multiple QAnon influencers to attend an event during the weekend of August 12, 2022, called “The Pit” dedicated to providing supposedly “devastating” evidence of election fraud. At the event, True the Vote’s leadership, Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, turned over to QAnon attendees supposed evidence of nefarious behavior by Konnech, an election software company, and asked them to “start connecting dots” and look further into the company. 

Now, messages sent less than two weeks after the event have been released that further detail how QAnon figures coordinated to target Konnech. On May 6, a right-wing influencer known online as “GusQuixote” posted a screenshot of Telegram chat logs from a group called “Pit Crew Think Tank,” likely a reference to The Pit. The logs seemingly featured messages from GusQuixote and QAnon figures “Red Pill Babe” and “The Authority.” In the weeks following the event and the messages, True the Vote endorsed all three of those figures on a stream, and even tasked The Authority to “tak[e] over a lot of ... the True the Vote research activities.” GusQuixote’s May 6 post also seemingly claimed regarding the Telegram group chat, “There were 50 of us. 10 worked. 20 talked. 20 watched.” 

In the messages, The Authority called the group chat “a place to think and collaborate” and suggested that the group chat was connected to further “dig rooms.” Specifically, he wrote that the “goal” of the group chat was to “incriminate [Konnech CEO] Eugene Yu within the reach of our network,” and that “once the intel is properly packaged up and the articles is written, Gregg and Catherine will deliver it to Sheriff’s/DA’s/Prosecutors.”

After The Pit, in the days both before and after those private messages were sent, True the Vote praised and shared what the QAnon community had supposedly found on Konnech, and in September 2022, Phillips suggested that True the Vote had passed this supposed research on Konnech from the QAnon community to law enforcement, including to a “particular county in California.”

In October 2022, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office indicted Yu for claims similar to those pursued by True the Vote and its QAnon collaborators, after an investigator from the office attended The Pit and Phillips allegedly spoke to a grand jury for the case. However, the following month, the district attorney’s office dropped the charges due to the “pace of the investigation” and the “‘potential bias in the presentation’ of evidence in the case.” Yu subsequently sued the Los Angeles County district attorney, eventually reaching a $5 million settlement in January 2024.