From Legal Scholar and George Washington University Law Professor, Jonathan Turley:
There is a curious story out this weekend on reported FBI raids of writers or associates of Project Veritas, the conservative investigative journalism outfit. Project Veritas has been described variously as “Gonzo” or “guerilla” journalism and some insist it is more of a political than a press organization. However, it fits the definition of journalism, in my view, and that makes the raids troubling. All the more troubling is the cause: the missing diary of President Biden’s daughter Ashley.
The New York Times reported that the FBI searched two locations in New York in search of the “stolen” diary that went missing days before the 2020 presidential election. Project founder James O’Keefe questioned how the Times received the story within an hour of the first raid.
Fox News host Sean Hannity: “Two properties linked to Project Veritas have been raided by federal agents. Project Veritas — they are a news organization. Are they not?”
Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett: “Yeah, they are a news organization, and they should be treated as such. Project Veritas did the right thing. They didn’t publish this [Ashley Biden diary] because they couldn’t verify the authenticity of the documents. What is so bewildering about this, is why in the world are the feds even involved in this? Let’s assume it’s a theft or a burglary. It’s not a federal crime. Here, this would be a state crime. There’s enormous conflict of interest, which under federal regulations requires that the feds recuse themselves because this is Joe Biden’s daughter. He’s in charge of the DOJ and the FBI. A journalist cannot be criminally prosecuted for publishing stolen material unless the journalist himself or herself is involved in the theft. There’s no indication of that.”
O’Keefe says that the organization actually received a tip that the diary was abandoned in a room, an allegation that harkened back to the abandoned laptop of Hunter Biden. However, Ashley reportedly insisted it was stolen.
The use of the FBI is also reminiscent of the still unexplained use of the FBI when Joe Biden was Vice President to search for a gun discarded by Hunter Biden behind a restaurant.
Project Veritas decided not to run the story because it could not verify that the diary belonged to Biden. (The FBI may have just offered that confirmation). Instead, it alerted the police, according to O’Keefe: “Project Veritas gave the diary to law enforcement to ensure it could be returned to its rightful owner. We never published it.”
So why the raids? Since when does the FBI conducted raids over missing diaries?
The FBI can cite the interstate elements of the alleged theft as raising a federal crime. However, what is the crime? It is not clear if they are suggesting that the responsible parties were seeking to sell the diary or that there was some national security element (which would be bizarre since Biden’s daughter was writing before her father ever became president).
Journalist organizations are routinely given material removed from businesses, agencies, or private owners without permission by confidential sources. If this is a federal crime subject to FBI raids, what happened to the new media policies of the Biden Administration after the Tucker Carlson controversy?
There are a host of unanswered questions. Here are five to start with:
1. What was the context for the diary’s loss? (Did Ashley Biden leave the diary in a room or was it stolen?)
2. What is the alleged federal crime (and what is the precedent for a major federal investigation over such an alleged theft)?
3. What precautions were taken by the Biden Administration in light of the claimed media status of the targeted individuals?
4. Why was there a delay in this action being taken if the alleged theft occurred a year ago?
5. Has this matter been under investigation for a year and did the White House request the intervention of the FBI?
Regardless of how one feels about Project Veritas, there should be calls from media outlets for some answers to these basic questions. Likewise, Congress should be seeking such answers as part of its oversight responsibilities.
— Eric Spracklen🇺🇸 (@EricSpracklen) November 8, 2021
— Eric Spracklen🇺🇸 (@EricSpracklen) November 8, 2021
MSNBC host Alex Witt: “The FBI Saturday searched the home of James O’Keefe. He’s the founder of Project Veritas…Would this be an FBI investigation? If it weren’t the daughter of the president?”
New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt: “Um, I don’t know. I don’t know whether this would be an investigation or not if it didn’t involve the president’s children.”
Witt: “Can you confirm whether Ashley Biden was a target and not just a random victim?”
Schmidt: “So, there’s a lot about it that we don’t know. And federal investigators thought that they had enough information, enough evidence to secure warrants to execute them at the location of these individuals, including James O’Keefe’s.”
Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe: “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.”
GLENN BECK | Revealing? FBI RAIDS journalist’s home for alleged Biden diary pic.twitter.com/YEJX0pv8rf
— Eric Spracklen🇺🇸 (@EricSpracklen) November 8, 2021
Glenn Beck: “Now why is the FBI going in and trying to intimidate press members?”
Stu Burguiere: “You have to take into account that it may very well just be an excuse to get to whatever Project Veritas has. You know what I mean? Going in there and being able to apprehend a bunch of computers and hard drives and files or whatever else they’re taken out of there; God only knows what other information about other things that could be there. I mean, this could just be, not an intimidation effort, but an information gathering effort to go after a political opponent.”
Beck: “Every single member of the media, if they were doing this to…Brian Stelter. If they were doing that to him, I would be standing up saying, ‘What are they doing? What are they doing?’”
Burguiere: “Yeah, I know the New York Post came out and defended Project Veritas and said, ‘What is going on here?’ We should all be together.”