A Republican lawyer who recently took on a leading role in the push by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to obtain state voter records was put on leave as a prosecutor in Los Angeles County after bringing charges based on information from a prominent far-right group of election conspiracists.

After the charges were dismissed, the county paid $5 million to settle a lawsuit over the flawed prosecution.

The DOJ lawyer, Eric Neff, has also promoted baseless fears about Dominion voting machines, seizing on a common conspiracy theory among anti-voting activists.

The hiring of Neff to a key post in DOJ’s voting section is the latest evidence of how, under President Donald Trump, the department has abruptly shifted from protecting voting rights to working to undermine them, as well as to promoting false claims about voting. And it raises questions about the department’s apparent willingness to prioritize politics and ideology over competence in personnel decisions. 

Neff, a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association according to the group’s website, joins several other top members of DOJ’s Civil Rights division who have indulged false claims about voting, cast doubt on election results, or worked to restrict access to the ballot. Those include the division’s leader, Harmeet Dhillon, as well as Mac Warner, another top official, and Maureen Riordan, the acting chief of the voting section.

“Having led a prosecution that resulted in such a disastrous defeat and cost the taxpayers $5 million would have, in any other administration of either party, been an absolute disqualifier for employment with the Justice Department,” said David Becker, a former DOJ voting section lawyer and now a prominent election administration expert. “And now it appears as if it’s almost a prerequisite.”

“This is where you see partisanship and loyalty being placed above qualifications and skills,” Becker added. “This is DEI for loyalists.”

Neff’s hiring hasn’t been formally announced by DOJ. But in a recent email to Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D), obtained by Democracy Docket, Neff identified himself as “the new contact for the voting section for our request for Colorado’s voter registration list.”

In that email, Neff asked Colorado election officials to sign a memorandum of understanding agreeing to hand over unredacted voter records. The state declined to do so.

Neff’s name also appears on the lawsuits filed Tuesday by DOJ against Washington and Delaware, which similarly demand that those states hand over unredacted voter records. In both, Neff is identified as “Trial Attorney, Voting Section.”

A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment on Neff’s hiring, and Neff himself did not respond to Democracy Docket’s inquiry.

Neff’s tenure as a top prosecutor with LA County appears to have ended acrimoniously, thanks to his pursuit of a case pushed by prominent election conspiracy theorists.

As Deputy District Attorney, Neff brought charges in October 2022 against Eugene Yu, the chief executive of the election management software company Konnech. Neff alleged that Yu and Konnech had unlawfully given contractors in China access to the sensitive personal data of an untold number of Los Angeles poll workers. Yu was charged with conspiracy to embezzle public funds and grand theft by embezzlement of public funds. 

Although Konnech’s software managed only data about poll workers, not votes, right-wing activists jumped on the announcement. Charlie Kirk called it “another election integrity ‘conspiracy theory’ confirmed.”

The investigation into Konnech appears to have been sparked by claims made by the conspiracy-driven election denier group True the Vote. The group’s false claims about mass voter fraud at ballot drop boxes in the 2020 election were the basis for conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza’s debunked film 2000 Mules.

In August 2022, True the Vote leaders Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, told attendees at a secret conference of election deniers that, according to True the Vote’s own investigation, Konnech had ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government access to the personal data of millions of American poll workers. 

The LA County District Attorney’s office acknowledged that its probe into Konnech was spurred by a complaint from Phillps. In sworn testimony in a defamation lawsuit later brought by Konnech against True the Vote, Phillips said he was first contacted by Neff in July, and that an investigator with Neff’s office was at the August event. Phillips also said he had spoken with the grand jury in LA County that ultimately indicted Yu.

But less than two months after they were brought, the charges against Yu were dropped with the District Attorney’s office citing “potential bias in the presentation” of evidence. Neff was subsequently placed on administrative leave. 

Yu then sued Neff and Los Angeles County, alleging that they violated his rights. The county settled the lawsuit for $5 million.

In April, 2024, Neff filed a tort claim against the county, saying he had been reinstated with the District Attorney’s office in a “much less desirable assignment” with the Welfare Fraud Unit. It isn’t clear what the outcome was.

Since leaving the office later that year, Neff has written articles for the conservative news site RedState raising questions about Dominion voting machines — another popular right-wing conspiracy theory. 

Neff also argued in a March column that Trump has “legitimate grounds” to impeach U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. 

Becker said the Justice Department’s willingness to hire figures like Neff gravely damages confidence in fair elections.

“It’s the same thing that doctors would say about conspiracy theorists who are rejecting science related to vaccines and other health issues,” Becker said. “It’s just disastrous to the trust of voters in our process.”

“We see the Justice Department veering sharply away from the role that it was created to serve,” he added. “Which was to enforce federal law as passed by Congress in elections.” 

DOJ’s New Voting Lawyer Brought Flawed Charges Pushed By Election Deniers