And if I Were in the DOJ’s Shoes, I Would Argue This Too

Any kind of investigation into this is going to make the FBI and DOJ look bad.

Biden Administration Urges Court Not to Appoint Special Master in Project Veritas Case (theepochtimes.com)

A federal judge shouldn’t accept a proposal by Project Veritas to appoint a special master after FBI agents raided the homes of journalists linked to the organization, U.S. government attorneys argued in a Nov. 19 court filing.

• Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
• Democracy dies in darkness.
• “Don’t appoint anyone to look into what we just did.”

Yeah, one of those things is not like the other.

In the end, this might be the best thing to ever happen to Project Veritas. They’re going to end up exposing more corruption than they ever dreamed of finding.

“When You’re on the Left and Lose the Post, You’ve Really Gone Too Far”

When You Lose the Washington Post, You've Gone Way Too Far – PJ Media

When you’re on the left and lose the Post, you’ve really gone too far. It’s abundantly clear at this point that the Post is fully on board with the authoritarian Biden/Garland agenda. Its coverage of the Attorney General siccing the FBI on law-abiding anti-CRT parents included such Orwellian headlines as “Faced with Republican criticism” — which all good Post readers know is something that is always wrongheaded, ill-advised, cynical, opportunistic, and on the wrong side of history — “Attorney General Garland defends school board memo”; “A man gave a Nazi salute at a school board meeting to oppose mask rules. Ted Cruz defended it as a form of protest”; and “Garland asks FBI to address recent ‘disturbing spike’ in threats against educators.” Nonetheless, if you go too far too fast, you risk waking up the sleeping populace, and so the Post is now calling for the Injustice Department to slam on the brakes.

Post media critic (yes, they really have such a thing; it’s kind of like Colonel Sanders having a fried chicken critic) Erik Wemple noted that Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, tweeted: “I’m sorry, but this is worrying from a press freedom perspective—unless & until DOJ releases evidence Protect Veritas was directly involved in the theft [of Ashley Biden’s diary]. Because if there is none, then the raids could very well be a violation of the Privacy Protection Act.”

And if you’ve forced The Washington Post to defend James O’Keefe, you’ve really gone too far.

Even the Anti-Civil Liberties Union Thinks the FBI Went Too Far With Project Veritas

Even the ACLU defends Project Veritas over government raid (reclaimthenet.org)

The ACLU released a statement criticizing the government for raiding Project Veritas founder and employees’ homes.
“Project Veritas has engaged in disgraceful deceptions, and reasonable observers might not consider their activities to be journalism at all,” begins the statement attributed to Brian Hauss, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

“Nevertheless, the precedent set in this case could have serious consequences for press freedom. Unless the government had good reason to believe that Project Veritas employees were directly involved in the criminal theft of the diary, it should not have subjected them to invasive searches and seizures.”

“We urge the court to appoint a special master to ensure that law enforcement officers review only those materials that were lawfully seized and that are directly relevant to a legitimate criminal investigation.”

Of course, there’s no evidence whatsoever that Project Veritas has engaged in any deceptions, certainly not “disgraceful” ones.  Of course, “deception” from the left these days means “telling facts we don’t want the public to hear”.

You Have to Wonder if This Was Part of the Goal From the Beginning

The FBI Raid of Project Veritas Turns Into a Massive Scandal After Privileged Communications Are Leaked – RedState

But what was so disturbing, besides the raids happening in the first place, was how quickly The New York Times knew about them. While O’Keefe was asked by the FBI to keep quiet, the Times knew within hours, pointing to a leaker within the bureau.

But while the Department of Justice requested us to not disclose the existence of the subpoena, something very unusual happened. Within an hour of one of our reporters’ homes being secretly raided by the FBI, The New York Times, who we are currently suing for defamation, contacted the Project Veritas reporter for comment. We do not know how The New York Times was aware of the execution of a search warrant at our reporter’s home, or the subject matter of the search warrant, as a Grand Jury investigation is secret.

Days later, O’Keefe would have his home raided as well, and sure enough, the Times once again knew it about it before anyone else. Are you noticing a pattern? Because it’s about to become as obvious as a neon sign.

This is a government operation using The New York Times as an accessory, to defame and destroy Project Veritas and James O’Keefe.

Don’t believe me?

Two days ago, a court ordered the FBI to stop extracting data from O’Keefe’s phones, which had apparently been seized. Again, all of this is being done under the allegation that…a diary was stolen. But then last night, things boiled over into outright scandal. The Times suddenly started publishing privileged communications between Project Veritas and its legal team. Those messages apparently came from one of O’Keefe’s phones.

And again, the Feds get an assist from the NYT.

The FBI raided Project Veritas on a pretext and is now leaking their privileged communications to the New York Times

This is a scandal pic.twitter.com/gll5PG4ShW

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) November 12, 2021

This is deliberate collusion between a major media source and the government. It’s awful and sickening.

Stop Means They’ve Already Started

We really need to get to the bottom of why this investigation is even taking place. Someone needs to be asked some pointed questions, and they better deliver direct answers.

Judge Orders FBI to Stop Search of Project Veritas Founder O'Keefe's Phone Following Raid – PJ Media

The FBI has been ordered by a federal judge to stop plundering information from James O’Keefe’s phone following a raid on his home and other properties connected with Project Veritas last weekend.

The raid was a chilling and frightening overreach by law enforcement of protected journalistic work product. O’Keefe has said that his phone offers a window into what other projects he and his staff are working on — projects the Biden Administration may not want him to cover.

The FBI raided O’Keefe’s apartment about 6 a.m. on Saturday with a phalanx of agents taking his electronics and other information, which they claimed would help discover how the journalist came into possession of President Biden’s daughter’s diary.

This is a frightening attack on Freedom of the Press.

The Department of Justice Is a Weapon to Be Used Against the Right

Third world dictatorship.

What is going on with Project Veritas and the FBI? (Update) – HotAir

Earlier today the NY Times reported that the FBI had carried out search warrants at locations in New York as part of a DOJ investigation of the alleged theft of a diary belonging to Joe Biden’s 39-year-old daughter Ashley:

The Justice Department searched two locations associated with the conservative group Project Veritas as part of an investigation into how a diary stolen from President Biden’s daughter, Ashley, came to be publicly disclosed a week and a half before the 2020 presidential election, according to people briefed on the matter.

One key point here. Project Veritas never published the diary.

O’Keefe said Project Veritas tried to verify the diary was real and that the things discussed in it had really happened but ultimately could not do either. “At the end of the day, we made the ethical decision that because in part we could not determine if the diary was real, if the diary in fact belonged to Ashley Biden, or if the contents of the diary occurred, we could not publish the diary in any part thereof,” O’Keefe said.

Huh.

So, why is the FBI involved in chasing down a diary that Project Veritas didn’t even publish?

What makes a missing diary a federal case in any event, and why raid PV?

But wait it gets weirder.

Update: The FBI raided James O’Keefe’s apartment at 6 am this morning. Once again, the NY Times seems to know every move being made in this case.

The F.B.I. carried out a court-ordered search of Mr. O’Keefe’s apartment in Mamaroneck, N.Y., early on Saturday morning, after having searched the homes of two associates of Mr. O’Keefe on Thursday as part of the investigation…

Brent Mickol, a teacher who lives across the hall from Mr. O’Keefe, said it was about 6 a.m. when agents arrived. Mr. Mickol said the agents said “something along the lines of ‘F.B.I. Warrant. Open up.’”

“I ran to the door and looked out the peep hole and clearly saw an F.B.I. raid,” he said. “You saw the jackets. Literally, it was just out of a movie.”

Police state.

The one “good” thing about this is that I think we can now state that the diary is authentic.

Interesting Juxtaposition

These two articles popped up right next to each other on my feed.

FBI Director Wray: Domestic Terrorism Tracking Has ‘Exploded,’ FBI Has ‘Prioritized’ Threat From ‘White Supremacy’ | The Daily Wire

“Threat from White Supremacy” is code for “clamp down on conservatives”. They don’t actually mean “white supremacy”. They mean “conservatism”, but they can’t yet get away with saying that directly.

Anyway, the other headline:

Liberal Group Includes Call to ‘Shoot Republicans’ in Letter to FCC (freebeacon.com)

Maybe the FBI should spend some time investigating that. That sounds like an actual threat, instead of the made up “white supremacy threat”.