Good day all. About a couple of months ago, the FBI conducted a questionable raid against James O’Keefe and Project Veritas. They seized all his electronics and, apparently, a number of legal documents that are protected by attorney/client privilege. Within days of the FBI taking these documents, they were published in the New York Slimes.
Project Veritas promptly sued the New York Slimes and asked for an injunction. The Slimes, of course, argued that they had every right to publish the stolen documents. Well, it seems that their argument was not accepted by the judge and he has ordered all the stolen documents returned to Project Veritas and issued an order forbidding the publication of these documents. Here are some of the details from Fox Business:
A New York state judge on Friday ordered the New York Times to return internal documents to the conservative activist group Project Veritas, a restriction the newspaper said violates decades of First Amendment protections.
In an unusual written ruling, Justice Charles Wood of the Westchester County Supreme Court directed the New York Times to return to Project Veritas any physical copies of legal memos prepared by one of the group’s lawyers, and to destroy electronic versions.
That is unusual. Between the Sullivan Decision and the Pentagon Papers case, once a newspaper gets their hands on documents like this, they generally get to keep them. Judges are very big on no prior restraint. However, there is little doubt that the Slimes knew these documents were privileged and that the U.S. Attorney and FBI providing them the documents was….questionable, at best.
Project Veritas, led by James O’Keefe, has used what critics view as misleading tactics like secret audio recording to expose what it describes as liberal media bias.
The so called “Misleading tactics” are what any old school reporter used to do. What really frosts the Progressives is that Project Veritas keeps showing the world what a pack of lying vermin they, (The Liberal Media), are. They also love to say that the recordings Project Veritas puts out have been edited to make their targets look bad. The problem with this, is the fact that once the story is complete, Project Veritas releases all the raw video, something the MSM will not do.
The group is the subject of a Justice Department probe into its possible role in the theft of a diary from President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley, pages of which were published on a right-wing website.
This is where a major line was crossed by the Department of Justice. Project Veritas did receive the diary, but didn’t do anything with it since they couldn’t verify the authenticity of it. Then they tried to return it to Ashley Biden through her attorney, who refused it. They finally handed it to the police.
This didn’t stop the corrupt Garland DOJ from flat out abusing their authority. They secured a bogus warrant and attacked James O’Keefe. He literally opened the door when they pounded on it, barely preventing them from smashing it in. This was nothing more than pure intimidation on the part of the U.S. Attorney and the DOJ. I have a suspicion that may have crossed the mind of the judge handling the case against the NY Slimes.
Project Veritas objected to a Nov. 11 Times article that drew from the legal memos and purported to reveal how the group worked with its lawyers to “gauge how far its deceptive reporting practices can go before running afoul of federal laws.”
Gee, talking with lawyers to make sure what you want to do isn’t against then law. I’m sure that the New York Slimes would never do anything that might be illegal, such as publishing stolen documents that were supposed to be in a secured federal office.
Wood said in Friday’s ruling that the Project Veritas legal memos were not a matter of public concern and that the group has a right to keep them private that outweighs concerns about freedom of the press.
“Steadfast fidelity to, and vigilance in protecting First Amendment freedoms cannot be permitted to abrogate the fundamental protections of attorney-client privilege or the basic right to privacy,” Wood wrote.
This is a very interesting case. On the one hand, you have the 1st Amendment which prevents prior restraint. On the other hand, you have an organization in receipt of private, privileged legal documents that can only have come from the Department of Justice and it’s representatives.
The Slimes, like all of the Communazi Propaganda Corps flat out hates James O’Keefe and Project Veritas, to the point that they never considered that they are, themselves, in serious legal jeopardy. Newspapers traditionally protect their sources, but, in this case, we know, in general, who the source was. The Slimes could face criminal charges as well as civil suit in this matter. The Judge might actually be doing them a favor. Of course, the Slimes being the Slimes, they don’t see it that way.
A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, said the newspaper would appeal the ruling. Sulzberger said the decision barred the Times from publishing newsworthy information that was obtained legally in the ordinary course of reporting.
“In addition to imposing this unconstitutional prior restraint, the judge has gone even further (and) ordered that we return this material, a ruling with no apparent precedent and one that could present obvious risks to exposing sources should it be allowed to stand,” Sulzberger said.
I would say that no, they didn’t receive the documents legally. There is no way they could have. The papers were in the possession of the Federal Government. The only way they could have gotten these papers was to steal them from the DoJ or, the DoJ provided them to the Slimes in violation of pretty much every law on the book. It might take until the new president is sworn in in 2025, but I suspect someone is going to jail. (Merrick Garland?)
Libby Locke, a lawyer for Project Veritas, said in a statement that the New York Times’ behavior was “irregular,” and that the ruling affirms that view.
“The New York Times has long forgotten the meaning of the journalism it claims to espouse, and has instead become a vehicle for the prosecution of a partisan political agenda,” Locke said.
The Slimes has been getting away with virtual murder, as it were, for decades. If they had any actual credibility left, they would have returned the privileged documents either to Project Veritas, or told the federal agent or federal attorney who provided them that the Slimes couldn’t use them. Instead, they couldn’t wait to jump at the chance to attack Project Veritas.
The Times had not faced any prior restraint since 1971, when the Nixon administration unsuccessfully sought to block the publication of the Pentagon Papers detailing U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.
In that case, it was federal documents, not private papers, so you could say they were “Taxpayer owned” papers. There was also what the Pentagon Papers said, and there was a true public interest in allowing them to be published. It wasn’t as though publishing the documents would blow an operation and put American forces at risk, (Which the Slimes and other news organizations have done since the Vietnam War). Finally there is the 1st Amendment protection of the right to publish.
The Project Veritas papers are not government, i.e. taxpayer property. They are private property, and technically, could be considered stolen goods. One of the little details about the Pentagon Papers case was that, while it did allow the publishing of the documents, it didn’t protect the reporters, publisher, editors and others from criminal prosecution after publication.
Theoretically, they could have been charged with receiving stolen property and, potentially, espionage. I’m going from memory here, but as I recall, with my razor sharp, Bidenlike memory, the Nixon Administration decided that going after the media and arresting them wasn’t worth the trouble it would cause them. (I suspect Nixon came to regret that decision)
As to what happens next, who can say? This case will be appealed and could even end up in the Supreme Court. There are several members of the court who might like to take another look at both the Sullivan and Pentagon cases. Considering the arrogance of the MSM, getting slapped down a few times, and potentially sued into oblivion might encourage the rest to actuallyreport real news and not make things up. In any case, this is a big win for Project Veritas. Now we need to find out how the documents came into the possession of the Slimes.
Thatisall
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