search to Sean Hannity on Fox News on Monday. O’Keefe and his lawyer, Paul Calli, revealed new details about the diary investigation and F.B.I. O’Keefe has acknowledged receiving a grand jury subpoena in the case. O’Keefe and two former Project Veritas operatives - Eric Cochran and Spencer Meads - as part of the investigation into the reported theft of Ms. The documents give new insight into the workings of the group at a time when it faces potential legal peril in the diary investigation - and has signaled that its defense will rely in part on casting itself as a journalistic organization protected by the First Amendment.
Barr emailed a representative of the group that the criminal statute involving false statements to federal officials “continues to be an expansive, dangerous law that inhibits Veritas’s operations.” “Because intent is relevant - and broadly defined - ensuring PV journalists’ intent is narrow and lawful would be paramount in any operation,” the group’s media lawyer, Benjamin Barr, wrote in response to questions from the group about using the dating app Tinder to have its operatives meet government employees, potentially including some with national security clearances.
Trump might violate the Espionage Act - the law passed at the height of World War I that has typically been used to prosecute spies. The documents show, for example, Project Veritas operatives’ concern that an operation launched in 2018 to secretly record employees at the F.B.I., Justice Department and other agencies in the hope of exposing bias against President Donald J. The documents, a series of memos written by the group’s lawyer, detail ways for Project Veritas sting operations - which typically diverge from standard journalistic practice by employing people who mask their real identities or create fake ones to infiltrate target organizations - to avoid breaking federal statutes such as the law against lying to government officials. Project Veritas has long occupied a gray area between investigative journalism and political spying, and internal documents obtained by The New York Times reveal the extent to which the group has worked with its lawyers to gauge how far its deceptive reporting practices can go before running afoul of federal laws. “In fact, one of our ethical rules is to act as if there are 12 jurors on our shoulders all the time.” “We never break the law,” he said, railing against the F.B.I.’s investigation into members of his group for possible involvement in the reported theft of a diary kept by President Biden’s daughter, Ashley.
agents searched the homes of two former Project Veritas operatives last week, James O’Keefe, the leader of the conservative group, took to YouTube to defend its work as “the stuff of responsible, ethical journalism.”
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