James O’Keefe Defiant After FBI Raids His Home Over Purported Ashley Biden Diary: “Project Veritas gave the diary to law enforcement”
Prof.Jonathan Turley: “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.”
Something shady and alarming is going on with the hyper–politicized, disgraced, and discredited FBI. On Saturday, the FBI raided the home of James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, reportedly regarding the alleged diary of Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden.
This is a diary that Project Veritas has said it was unable to authenticate, did not publish, and turned over to authorities (after first trying unsuccessfully to give it back to Ashley).
Given this set of claims, what on earth was the FBI doing raiding a journalist’s home? Why not just set up a meeting with O’Keefe and have a nice chat? And why raid the homes of at least two other persons associated with Project Veritas earlier in the week? And how on earth did the New York Times know about the raids within the hour of the first one occurring?
The Federal Bureau of Investigation searched through the home of Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe two days after they searched the homes of his associates in the Southern District of New York’s inquiry into the theft of Ashley Biden’s diary.
As detailed by the New York Times on Friday, the FBI raided the homes of two people linked to Project Veritas. Sources told the Times that the search warrants were executed on Thursday at one location on East 25th Street and another on Mamaroneck.
On Saturday, the FBI searched the home of James O’Keefe, according to witnesses who spoke to the New York Times. O’Keefe had acknowledged that Project Veritas was under investigation by the Justice Department in connection to the diary.
The Times reported that neighbors who interacted with the FBI were informed that the agents were interested in O’Keefe and searched his apartment while executing a search warrant.
“I ran to the door and looked out the peep hole and clearly saw an F.B.I. raid,” said one of O’Keefe’s neighbors to the Times. “You saw the jackets. Literally, it was just out of a movie.”
In a video statement on Friday, O’Keefe defended his group’s handling of the diary, which the group did not publish. He defended his actions and his colleagues, stating that they were operating as ethical journalists who turned the diary over to the authorities and sought to return it to a lawyer for Ashley Biden.
“It appears the Southern District of New York now has journalists in their sights for the supposed crime of doing their jobs lawfully and honestly,” Mr. O’Keefe said in the video. “Our efforts were the stuff of responsible, ethical journalism and we are in no doubt that Project Veritas acted properly at each and every step.”
Watch O’Keefe’s video. Twice.
The Post Millennial provides background:
Last year, details of the diary of Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley surfaced on a website published under the byline of Patrick Howley, just a week and a half before Election Day. At the same time, the Biden campaign was also trying to downplay the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, which were leaked to the New York Post.
Howley’s website claimed that it had obtained the diary from a whistleblower for a media organization that refused to publish a story about it before the election. The website also claimed to know the whereabouts of the actual diary and that the whistleblower had a recording admitting the diary belonged to her.
NYMag reported: “Dozens of handwritten pages from Ashley Biden’s journal were published on October 24, 2020 by a right-wing website under the byline of Patrick Howley, a reporter who has on at least two occasions been the first to reveal politically damaging information about Democratic politicians,” including former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and Cal Cunningham. “The posting claimed the diary had been obtained from a whistleblower at a media organization. The published diary pages were mostly ignored by both mainstream and right-wing media at the time.”
So we have a diary popping up and finding its way to Project Veritas. They attempted to confirm its authenticity, as is correct and proper, and were unable to do so. Rather than run with unconfirmed sources and rumors, as the Democrat media propagandists did for four years with the absolute lies in the thoroughly debunked Steele/Clinton dossier, Project Veritas declined to publish the diary or the story. Not only that, but they first tried to return the diary to Ashley before (again properly and correctly) turning it over to authorities.
In other words, Project Veritas acted with far more journalistic integrity than CNN, MSNBC, and etc. did with the phony, lie-filled and unverified (unverifiable given that it’s all lies), fantasist Steele/Clinton dossier.
We all know exactly which outlets and media personalities spent the weeks before the 2020 election spreading the CIA's lie: the Biden emails were "Russian disinformation." They know who they are. How do they sleep knowing they lied about this, then ignoring this book proving it??
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 7, 2021
One key point I omitted: no discussion of the Russiagate fraud and the media's role is complete without highlighting their key partners in all of this: the security state services (CIA/FBI/NSA/DOJ).
The most under-discussed media story of this decade is how they all but merged. pic.twitter.com/3Sxg5dizb2
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 7, 2021
So of course it’s Project Veritas’ journalists being attacked by the hyper-partisan Biden FBI.
Jonathan Turley has penned a compelling piece about the FBI raid (which, he parenthetically notes, rather substantiates the diary’s authenticity).
There are a host of unanswered questions on this raid. Regardless of how one feels about Project Veritas, there should be calls from all media outlets for sone answers. Congress also should be seeking such answers as part of its oversight responsibilities.https://t.co/XeQFXNWXK5
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) November 7, 2021
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.
. . . . 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?
Turley posits five questions that encompass the seeming (and willing) weaponization of the FBI against Biden critics in the media and the unconstitutional targeting of journalists by the federal government.
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?
Turley concludes:
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.
There are a host of unanswered questions on this raid. Regardless of how one feels about Project Veritas, there should be calls from all media outlets for sone answers. Congress also should be seeking such answers as part of its oversight responsibilities.https://t.co/XeQFXNWXK5
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) November 7, 2021
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Comments
Federal Bureau of Democrat’s Intimidation
“which the group did not publish.”
I am assuming that the first thing they did was digitize the diary. Now is the time to publish it.
Seems to me that if this were anything but intimidation, the feds would have raided the reporters’ homes, O’Keefe’s home, and Veritas’ offices all at the same time. We all know, of course, that the FBI, DOJ, US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, all now have the “on-going investigation” shield to hide behind to avoid answering media and Congressional questions about this entire matter. I’m not an attorney, but if this really is a grand jury subpoena, aren’t the affidavits supporting the search warrant sealed pretty much forever?
FBI aka KGB
I would love to se which judge authorized a search warrant and what (lies) was he told by the Southern District of New York to justify the search warrant.
“ hyper-partisan Biden FBI”.
No…
It’s the Stasi now
“So of course it’s Project Veritas’ journalists being attacked by the hyper-partisan Biden FBI.”
I, too, object to the last four words.
The “Trump FBI” were also hyper-partisan Democrats.
Whatever administration is involved is nothing but the tail.
The alphabet agencies are the dog.
Fair point. I think, though, that given this is purportedly about (?) the diary of a sitting Democrat presidentish’s daughter, and the FBI are definitely acting like Democrat operatives, the “Biden FBI” construct is okay here.
But you are right that it was never Trump’s FBI. They are clearly operating outside the law, and evidence has been mounting for years that they blatantly did so to take down the duly-elected Republican and non-establishment, non-deep-state approved president.
FBI / KGB
What’s the difference ?
It is a sorry state of affairs’ that the FBI has destroyed their reputation.
Or let’s just say they have squandered the fictional reputation that was acrefully created for them.
That’s like saying that a hooker has destroyed he reputation
The difference between the KGB and the FBI is that when the KGB staged a coup against Mikhail Gorbachev they were stripped of their power and disbanded. But when the FBI attempted a coup against Donald Trump not much happened to those responsible.
MORE QUESTIONS
1. Who ordered the raid ?
2. Who in the White House knew about the raid ?
3. Has the politicized FBI been emboldened by the fact that no FBI employees have had ANY adverse impact from the Clinton Dossier scandal ?
4. Why hasn’t CNN,NBC, WaPo or other legacy media denounced this raid on a journalist ? Does the 1st Amendment only matter to them when it is a Progressive reporter that is targeted by the government ?
Another question. To get a warrant, a FBI special agent had to swear out an affidavit. Can we see the affidavit, the warrant, and therefore get the name of the SA who started this, and the judge who OKed it.
we will never know
Bound to be pretty interesting “particularity” involved in that affidavit, starting with the section of the US Code allegedly violated.
I am sure that this diary contains lots of sleazy information. The Biden kids would have been better off if they had been raised in the foster care system…hell, being raised by wolves would have been better. Using this information to defeat Sleepy Joe leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it’s exploiting kids who were raised in a no-win situation; however, the real shame here lies with Joe & Jill because the entries in this diary are there because of Biden family dysfunction
On the other hand, I can understand why Biden’s people would not accept the diary. Accepting it acknowledges the diary belongs to Ashley Biden.
And also, what is so obvious that it doesn’t need to be said. Ashley Biden’s diary was a non-story, but if you go through and change the name on it to Ivanka or Donald Jr., well, you know….
The diary has only been authenticated to this point by the FBI raids. If it weren’t real, would they really be raiding everyone who saw it? Apparently there are claims in the diary pages that reveal Ashley was uncomfortable about showering with her father (Joe Biden) as a young girl.
I can’t even. This is so disgusting and depraved that I really (for once) have no words.
Yeah, it’s all fuzzy to me, too! Biden is totally disgusting and depraved and that’s when he was in his right mind.
Heh, so true. I just can’t get over this shower thing. What grown man takes showers with his female children (or any of the countless gendered children who get his sniffer going)? Was there a water shortage, some other reason? Or did he just like being naked in a shower with his naked daughter? This is just skeevy and gross. No wonder she’s a druggie . . . like her brother Hunter. Maybe she can start selling her own line of finger paintings for a quarter of a million dollars a pop to “the Big Guy’s” associates among America’s enemies? This entire admin makes me sick to my stomach.
Pedophiles gonna pedophile until they die. Nothing seems to stop them.
Pedophile Joe’s got so many miles on his pedometer that his pedophilator is nearly worn out.
That would tick Hunter off. We already have him on paper kvetching to Ashley that he is the only one of the sibs that Joe taps for 50% of the grift.
If the diary is real it was authenticated by the FBI raid. However, if it wasn’t real there’s possibility the FBI knew it was fake and just used it as a pretext to discredit P/V or head off a story that’s about to break.
This is so disgusting and depraved that I really (for once) have no words.
The words you’re looking for are pedophile. Pedophilia. Sexual abuse.. Deviant behavior. Because what Father takes showers with their own daughter. That’s beyond disgusting.
All of which would have resulted in anyone but Joe being imprisoned for a lengthy time in a penitentiary and then being required to register with every sex offender list in the country. But not Joe. Oh, that’s just Joe being Joe. There’s no real harm in it. Right? Right??
“I am sure that this diary contains lots of sleazy information.”
Why just “be sure?” It’s online. You can read it.
And tomorrow, I believe I shall, at leisure.
Something I never would have bothered to do had the Democrats gone all Nazi on us.
* NOT gone all Nazi on us…
Nice how Democrats Propaganda Ministry personnel get to ride along with their cohorts in the Democrats Law Enforcement Bureau
If nothing else, this goes to show want a HORRID mother Jill Biden was.
This idiot gave us Hunter, and now the abused Ashley.
Worse, she is running BIden, which is why the nation is falling apart.
This also shows O’Keefe is among a handful of prestigous reporters who actually do reporting as a member of the Fourth Estate.
I feel sorry for the kids, both because their genes and the corrosive environment they have been raised in.
Neilia died in a tragic car wreck.. 1972… Joe married Jill in 1977. Still does not excuse Hunter…
Police state tactics against political enemies and the media. Next it will be the parents. People notice.
And the party operatives in the comments section @ Turley’s post. Daaaamn.
It’s kind of important that we read their crazy. We don’t live in quite the same bubble as the leftists do, but we do have our own versions of that. It’s important for us to read and understand exactly what we are up against, so we don’t fall into the delusion that all of America really thinks like us (they really don’t) and is just waiting for some miracle to set them free (there is no miracle, just hard graft . . . a turn-off to most who want instant solutions to century-long problems). In the meantime, it’s important to read that crap and to understand what they are thinking. We can’t win if we have no clue who are enemy is, what they believe, and why.
It’s fun to be reductive and dismissive (I love to do this, too!), but it’s not really helpful to our cause because it diminishes the very real, existential threat these people pose. These are not stupid people, and they are not without principals or some guiding light. They’re dead-wrong on everything, but we would do well to understand who they are and what they believe and why. Otherwise we are just tilting at windmills, right?
I see people in our ranks critical of Trumps handling of the swamp, both he and we were clueless of how bad the problem was. Trump deserves no blame, and I am hoping that if we return Trump to office, that he will be much more aggressive.
Nobody’s arguing. The main attribute here is venal.
There is stupid venal (using obvious Democrat employees to false-flag a right-wing pro-Youngkin “demonstration”), and there is wily venal (having undercover agitators co-opt the January 6 demonstration), but it’s all venal. And stupid or wily, they deserve the same retribution, none of which we’re ever going to see anyway, unless we perform it ourselves.
Yes, if the intent was to suppress knowledge of the diary and its contents, it would be a really stupid move on the part of the FBI if their raids call attention to what is in the diary and brings it into the news since its existence and contents was largely forgotten. Therefore, either the FBI is wildly incompetent, or their masters ordering them around are wildly incompetent (Let’s go Brandon!), so it’s very possible.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the FBI knows what it is doing and taking these actions to thrust the diary and its contents into the open with these unjustifiable raids. If the latter, the still politicized FBI is turning on Biden. It’s still politicized, but perhaps not going after either journalist or PV., but rather indirectly at Biden.
However, if they were turning on Biden, then there would seem to be plenty of grist for action in Hunter’s laptop, which they have studiously avoided. So the incompetent politicization against conservatives and regime opponents theory seems more plausible, in total.
I have a theory. I state up front that it is JUST a theory.
The reason they’re not zeroing in on Hunter and his wandering laptops is that it might take them in the direction of using foreign aid to launder money that goes back into politician pockets. Hunter is too close to that action and any investigation runs the risk of turning over those rocks.
I would like to know what the federal interest is in a missing diary? Last I checked, the feds don’t have jurisdiction for petty larceny. In many states – like California – the theft of a journal wouldn’t even merit a criminal investigation much less a warrant signed by a judge.
If the FBI is going to be investing hundreds of thousands of dollars and manpower hours in finding a missing diary which may not have even been stolen, how much effort are they going to put into the organized shoplifting cartels that are stealing MILLIONS in merch from stores in urban settings?
FBI priorities are diaries and garage door pulls.
The FBI is a criminal organization. If they contact you in any way for any reason, call a lawyer.
If he advises you to cooperate, call a different lawyer.
Great advice and also, never say a word to an FBI agent, even “hello” is off limits
This is a blatantly political raid Any links to the search warrants and the documents supporting them?
Third world dictator tactics by the left. Remember how they treated Roger Stone, Audrey Hudson, Jeffrey Rosen and Sharyl Attkisson, to name a few?
Jack booted thugs in early morning raids or computer surveillance?
I though President Trump was supposed to be the dictator?
Publishing people’s – especially children’s – diaries should be off limits.
So should the FBI’s behavior in this case.
Agreed, but the Biden offspring should learn to keep their private documents/computers, well, private, and not leave them lying around. That is on them.
Hunter is up to three “lost” computers now. Plus a gun.
I have had many of each, and never have I ever lost one.
Then those diaries should be kept in a locked safe in a closet with a sign on the door that states “Beware of the Leopard” so that they aren’t accidentally “lost” and find their way into the hands of others. Especially if they contain allegations of serious crimes.
When the reason for the raid defies logical sense, the obvious explanation is likely the correct one.
I submit that the real purpose was to gain information about Project Veritas’s ongoing projects and operatives in the field. This is an intelligence gathering operation. Ashley Biden’s diary is simply the pretext. There is no predicate whatsoever for Federal Law Enforcement to investigate a stolen diary.
Give O’Keefes history, there’s zero chance he has anything incriminating in his home
They know this
This is harassment and intimidation and giving the feds a chance to plant evidence to take him down
except what the KGB plants.
He does seem much smarter than all of the “G-Men” chasing him, 🤣🤣🤣!
Defund the FBI
I saw a theory on Twitter that the FBI raid was one of two reasons;
1. Intimidate Project Veritas.
2. Send a message to Biden and his team.
It makes no sense for the FBI to raid PV over this because that means they are validating the diary as real. Who raids over a fake diary? No one.
Since PV is not going to be intimidated it looks like option 2 is on the table.
Too bad he didn’t keep the diary…the FBI authenticated it for him when they raided him and his colleagues.
Did he ever say he didn’t keep a copy? I haven’t seen that explicitly denied.
FWIW, a friend who’s an IP lawyer suggested that the basis of the FBI involvement could be Title 17. It’s illegal to duplicate a copyrighted work. Journals, personal diaries are apparently intellectual property protected under US federal law. If someone had access to the original manuscript, they could legally quote and publish brief passages from it under fair use. But, they could not duplicate the entire journal or even substantive sections of it. It would be analogous to copying a DVD, even one that you purchased. Many people don’t realize that’s technical a federal crime, albeit one that is almost never enforced.
Unpopular take. Having read the content published this seems to be a deeply troubled woman grasping at straws to come up with a molestation narrative for herself. I had a wokist friend from high-school that did the same. No memory of specific abuse but tons of innuendo to create a victim narrative out of whole cloth. I’m sure she has a rough relationship with her parents, but don’t put any stock in her claims and hope she gets the psychological help she obviously needs. The real story should be the continued abuse of power by the FBI.
Have you seen the photo?
(Fun fact I just uncovered: If you submit this photo to Google’s image search, it suggests the topic “pervy uncle.”)
This is not about the diary.
This is about the Facebook, hospital worker, and Pfizer whistleblower features that PV recently broadcasted.
This is a typical FBI “clean up” crew operation. How quickly it has been forgotten the early morning raid by the FBI on the home of a whistleblower, Dennis Nathan Cain, to fraud in the Clinton foundation.
.Cain had already turned over the documents to Congress.
The Cain search warrant is forever sealed, never to see the light of day. So to, will the Veritas search warrants be forever sealed.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/debra-heine/2019/01/28/clinton-appointed-judge-refuses-to-unseal-documents-pertaining-to-raid-on-alleged-clinton-foundation-whistleblower-n63403
Will live in a totalitarian state.
The FBI could redeem some of their damaged reputation if they brought charges of Incest, Rape, Pedophilia, Money Laundering, and lying to the FBI, against Joe Biden. Short of that, the entire Security apparatus in our Government is forever sullied.
Congress MUST take steps to clean up the mess now, before it can’t be fixed!
First, the top management layer in each department will have to be fired. So, that means a year from today, Congress needs to take action.
Too bad the whole lot can’t be strung-up!
The fortunate timing of a Pew Survey of world opinion of the United States that shows as raids like this go up from Joe Biden’s stasi the opinion of America respecting individual rights has made me conclude
George Washington was right bleep being the arsenal of democracy as far as I’m concerned they are on their own.
Seems to me that the diary is an excuse. What was the point of the actual raid? Is it just pure intimidation? Or were they looking for something else – a fishing expedition, maybe, to see if they could turn up something they might be able to call a crime? Or maybe they were planting something that they could “find” in the raid?