A judge in New York ordered The New York Times to temporarily cease publishing or seeking out documents related to Project Veritas. This is an unusual case of a court preventing coverage by a major news agency.
First Amendment advocates raised immediate concerns about the order. They called it a violation to basic constitutional protections for journalists. This viewpoint was also shared by The Times. Project Veritas issued a statement in support of the order, arguing that it did not amount to a significant imposition on the newspaper’s rights.
The judge’s order is part of a pending libel lawsuit filed by Project Veritas against The Times in 2020. The suit claims that the newspaper defamed Project Veritas by reporting on a video made by the group, which made unverified claims about voter fraud in Minnesota.
Led by the provocateur James O’Keefe, Project Veritas often conducts sting operations — including the use of fake identities and hidden cameras — aimed at embarrassing Democratic campaigns, labor organizations, news outlets and other entities. It is the subject of a Justice Department investigation into its possible involvement in the reported theft of a diary that apparently belonged to President Biden’s daughter, Ashley.
Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a lawyer who represents media outlets including CNN, called the court’s order “ridiculous.”
“Even though it’s temporary, the Supreme Court has said even the most modest, minute-by-minute deprivations of these First Amendment rights cannot be tolerated,” Mr. Boutrous said. “To go further and suggest a limit on news gathering, I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
The Times published excerpts taken from memos that Project Veritas lawyer John C. Smith prepared in a November 11 article on the Justice Department investigation. This explained how Project Veritas could engage with deceptive reporting practices such as creating fake identities and avoiding any violation of federal law.
The memos date back several years to the libel suit against The Times. Project Veritas filed a motion Wednesday claiming that The Times had violated its right to attorney–client privilege by publishing the memos. The paper was accused of trying to embarrass an opponent in litigation. (Along with the written excerpts, images of the memos were briefly posted on Nov. 11 on The Times’s website. A Times spokesperson said that this was accidental and that the images were removed when editors realized the error.
On Thursday, the trial court judge, Charles D. Wood of State Supreme Court in Westchester County, ordered that The Times “immediately sequester, protect and refrain” from disseminating any of the materials prepared by the Project Veritas lawyer. Furthermore, Justice Wood instructed The Times to “cease further efforts to solicit or acquire” those materials, effectively preventing the newspaper from reporting on the matter.
The order was to be in force until next week’s hearing. The Times intended to immediately challenge it in an appellate court.
“This ruling is unconstitutional and sets a dangerous precedent,” Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, wrote in a statement on Thursday.
“When a court silences journalism, it fails its citizens and undermines their right to know,” Mr. Baquet wrote. “The Supreme Court made that clear in the Pentagon Papers case, a landmark ruling against prior restraint blocking the publication of newsworthy journalism. This principle applies clearly here. We are seeking an immediate review of this decision.”
This month, federal agents conducted court-ordered searches at locations in New York City and in Westchester County associated with members of Project Veritas, including the home of Mr. O’Keefe, as part of an investigation into how the diary said to belong to Mr. Biden’s daughter surfaced publicly in the days before the 2020 election.
Project Veritas lawyers stated that the group had obtained the diary from unidentified individuals and that they believed that the diary had been legally obtained. A warrant used in the search of Mr. O’Keefe’s home indicated that federal authorities believed the property was stolen.
Project Veritas tries to present itself to be a journalistic organization that is protected by First Amendment rights. The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the Justice Department for “invasive searches and seizures” of properties affiliated with the group, though the A.C.L.U. added that “reasonable observers might not consider their activities to be journalism at all.”
Mr. O’Keefe, in his own statement on Thursday, suggested that The Times’s coverage of the Justice Department searches had been biased. “The paper needs to decide if it is in favor of press freedom for all, or only itself, because it can’t have it both ways,” Mr. O’Keefe wrote.
Among other aims, Mr. O’Keefe has said he is determined to expose what he describes as a liberal bias in the mainstream media and major technology companies like Google and Facebook.
Project Veritas acknowledged that it had discussed the diary with sources before it decided against publishing it. One right-wing website published photos it claimed to be the diary’s images. It claimed that the images were obtained from a person who worked for a media company that had decided not to publish a story.
Project Veritas was a close friend of National File, a right-wing website. Mr. O’Keefe was once the president of a company registered to the same address as the company that owns the right-wing website. The website’s owner also shares an address in Wyoming with a firm run by a former British spy, Richard Seddon, who taught espionage tactics to Project Veritas operatives.
Source: NY Times
