Project Veritas’ 1A claim rejected in Biden daughter diary theft case
NEW YORK — Criminal prosecutors may soon get to see over 900 documents pertaining to the alleged theft of a diary belonging to President Joe Biden's daughter after a judge rejected the conservative group Project Veritas' First Amendment claim.
Project Veritas attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said an appeal of Thursday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres is being considered. In the written decision, the judge said the documents can be given to investigators by Jan. 5.
The documents were produced from raids that were authorized in November 2021. Electronic devices were also seized from the residences of three Project Veritas members, including two mobile phones from the home of James O'Keefe, the group's since-fired founder.
Project Veritas, founded in 2010, identifies itself as a news organization. It is best known for conducting hidden camera stings that have embarrassed news outlets, labor organizations and Democratic politicians.
In written arguments, lawyers for
Project Veritas and O'Keefe said the government's investigation “seems undertaken not to vindicate any real interests of justice, but rather to stifle the press from investigating the President's family. “It is impossible to imagine the government investigating an abandoned diary (or perhaps the other belongings left behind with it), had the diary not been written by someone with the last name ‘Biden,'” they added.
The judge rejected the First Amendment arguments, saying in the ruling that they were “inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent.”
She also noted that Project Veritas could not claim it was protecting the identity of a confidential source from public disclosure after two individuals publicly pleaded guilty in the case.
She was referencing the August 2022 guilty pleas of Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander to conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property. Both await sentencing.
The pleas came two years after Harris and Kurlander, who were not Project Veritas employees, discovered that Ashley Biden had stored items including a diary at a friend's Delray Beach, Florida, house.