If you want to know what it’s like when the FBI comes knocking, watch the latest video from Project Veritas.
The undercover journalism outfit has published footage of the early-morning FBI raid on a PV reporter’s home.
The reason for the frightening, door-pounding, KGB-like search: Ashley Biden’s diary, which suggested that her father, POTUS 46 Joe Biden, was just a little creepy.
Even leftist mainstream-media organizations were concerned, as was the communist-inspired American Civil Liberties Union.
The Video
PV’s first-hand learning experience with the FBI began after the group received the diary from a tipster, but refused to publish because it could not authenticate it.
As O’Keefe explains in the new video release, PV “worked with local law enforcement to return these materials to her.”
No matter. The FBI raided the homes of O’Keefe and two of his reporters.
The video depicts pounding on a PV reporter’s door and an FBI agent shouting “open up!”
“What is this regarding,” the reporter asked.
“This is a search warrant. Just open up.”
“Let me see your hands! Let me see your hands” an FBI agent says.
The video shows the agents adopting a more friendly approach with the reporter and their search.
“The government’s invasion of our First Amendment rights should send shivers down the spine of every journalist around the country,” O’Keefe said.
Noting that federal authorities targeted PV, O’Keefe said, “What you have just seen is an effort by the government to intimidate and silence us as journalists”:
But Project Veritas will never be silenced. The First Amendment protects journalists and all people who speak out. We will stand firm to vindicate our own First Amendment rights, fight for the rights of our fellow journalists, and all Americans. We cannot and will not be intimidated. Stay tuned, because we are just getting started.
And the newly published footage “isn’t even the most shocking thing” about the federal prosecutors’ “attacks against journalism. There’s more coming out soon. We are just getting started.”
These raids aren’t the only evidence that the FBI is targeting the group. As The New American reported in January, documents uncovered by Judicial Watch show that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer was in cahoots with the FBI to target the group as well.
Pfizer, apparently, wanted revenge for PV’s undercover interviews with employees who candidly explained their problems with the company’s China Virus vaccines.
Leftists Defend Project Veritas
Even if grudgingly, leftist media organizations uniformly denounced the dawn raids.
“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,” tweeted Trevor Timm of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “Because if there is none, then the raids could very well be a violation of the Privacy Protection Act.”
Said Brian Hauss, senior attorney with ACLU’s Speech and Technology Project:
Project Veritas has engaged in disgraceful deceptions, and reasonable observers might not consider their activities to be journalism at all. 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.
“This is just beyond belief,” said Jane Kirtley, a law professor at the University of Minnesota law school and former executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “I’m not a big fan of Project Veritas, but this is just over the top. I hope they get a serious reprimand from the court because I think this is just wrong.”
The Diary
Though PV returned the diary, the National File obtained and published its more shocking claims.
Ashely Biden wrote that she wondered whether she was molested. “I think so — I can’t remember specifics but I do remember trauma,” she wrote.
The author wrote that she remembers “sex with friends @ a young age; showers with my dad (probably not appropriate).”
In December, the New York Times reported that the Department of Justice was investigating a woman who moved into young Biden’s rental home when she moved out and left behind some belongings, including the diary. That individual who sold it PV, which again, gave the diary to law enforcement without publishing any of it.
H/T: The Daily Caller
