JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
The New York Times publishes our attorney-client memos on the heels of the FBI raids that every other organization in our journalism industry, and outside of it, rallied against. We asked the trial court in New York State to require The New York Times to explain themselves. The trial court agreed and ordered The New York Times to stop spreading what they already published. The New York Times appealed that decision and the Appellate Court, Friday, denied their appeal. The New York Times claimed the documents on their website were an, “inadvertent error.” They knew they messed up. The head of The New York Times then had the audacity to cite the Pentagon Papers, like there’s any comparison. The New York Times are leaking our attorney-client privileged documents, while being an ongoing defendant in that litigation, and that my friends, makes all the difference in the world.
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
Last year we published a video in Minnesota showing a Somali man, Liban Mohamed, filming himself on Snapchat in his car clearly committing voter fraud.
LIBAN MOHAMED, BALLOT HARVESTER:
Numbers don’t lie. Numbers don’t lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentee ballots. Can’t you see? Look at all these. My car is full. My car is full.
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
We also published a video of a man named Osman Ali Dahquane bragging that he was breaking the law and bragging on-tape that he did not care.
OSMAN ALI DAHQUANE, BALLOT HARVESTER:
We take money and we vote for you.
OMAR JAMAL:
That is illegal? Isn’t it?
OSMAN ALI DAHQUANE, BALLOT HARVESTER:
We don’t care illegal.
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
The New York Times does an article about the video, and in the first sentence of that article they call the video, “deceptive.” The New York Times also reports that we were “making claims without evidence,” and cited a Stanford study that said that the video was “probably part of a coordinated disinformation effort.” We sue the New York Times for defamation. The New York Times’ defense before the court is that the statement that the video was deceptive, in the first sentence of that article, was “an unverifiable expression of opinion.” The judge ruled that the dictionary definitions of deception provided by the defendants’ counsel certainly apply to Maggie Astor. That’s the reporter that wrote the video was deceptive.
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
After we won that Motion to Dismiss, Maggie Astor admitted in court documents filed in the answer to our defamation complaint that she is not an opinion writer for The New York Times. USA Today then did a fact-check on our video based upon The New York Times article, which again, The New York Times falsely said was just an opinion piece, and in-turn Facebook, which utilizes USA Today as a fact-checker, banned those videos of those men committing voter fraud in Minneapolis.
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
All based upon something The New York Times claimed was just an, “unverifiable expression of opinion.” Fast-forward, the FBI raids Project Veritas and my home. I make a statement and The New York Times misquotes our statement.
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
Project Veritas gave the diary to law enforcement to ensure it could be returned to its rightful owner. We never published it. The New York Times reported, “He said that Project Veritas attempted to return the diary to the Justice Department.” Now, I gave a very clear statement with an accompanying transcript, and The New York Times couldn’t even get that correct. Only after we sent The New York Times reporter a letter to point out their mistake, did they correct what they wrote and they actually published a correction, which is at the bottom of that article.
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
A week after the raid, many journalists started to ask questions. Ben Smith, who is actually a media columnist at The New York Times, said that journalists shouldn’t be “cheerleading” it. A Politico reporter, who is the national political correspondent, said that the raids could have a “chilling” effect. And Trevor Timm of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said it was worrying from a press freedom perspective. All that was November 10th.
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
The New York Times then publishes our attorney-client memos. We ask the trial court in New York State to require The New York Times to explain themselves. “This motion concerns a shocking display of unscrupulous gamesmanship by Defendant, The New York Times. While the litigation between Project Veritas and The New York Times was ongoing, through moribund due to a stay of discovery entered by the Appellate Division at The New York Times' request, as it appeals the denial of its motion to dismiss, the Times decided to circumvent both its own stay and the normal discovery channels, and to improperly acquire clearly attorney-client privileged memoranda written for Project Veritas by its counsel of record in this case. But, The New York Times did not stop there. It then chose to further disregard and prejudice Project Veritas’ substantial rights as attorney-client confidences by disseminating those protected legal memoranda to the whole world in two separate online publications.”
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
Now, they can “amend” whatever article they want, but here are the facts. The page on which the content was supposedly inadvertently posted contains an advertising placement at the top indicating it was intended for the public view. The page on which the content was posted contained social media badges for easy sharing, indicating it was intended for the public’s view. The page on which these documents were posted contains a link to download the entire document as a PDF, which would have been unnecessary for the reporters working on the story. So, given the sensitivity of the material, it boggles the mind that the Times expects us to believe that the placement of the material on a server that was intended for the public display of content to the World Wide Web was not actually intended to be published.
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
The trial court in New York State ordered The New York Times to stop spreading what they already published. The New York Times appealed that decision and the Appellate court Friday denied their appeal.
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
Now, they’re doubling down. The New York Times is now claiming such an order is an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. But this is not a prior restraint. Why? Let’s be clear. The Times already published the attorney-client memos. The New York Times knew the publication of these communications was wrong, evidenced by the fact that shortly after publishing them the Times removed the memos from its website, and admitted that they were only published due to a “technical error.” This would never be an issue if the Times were not a defendant in our defamation case, and if the memos were not drafted by the very attorneys who represent us in that case. In fact, New York law imposes on litigants, and especially their lawyers, obligations not to infringe the rights of an adverse party by obtaining, using, and publishing attorney-client communications.
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
Which, by the way, we’re very proud of what’s in those memos, as the New York Post headline said, they included a “strategy of trying to avoid breaking federal law.” The comments from executive editor Dean Baquet at The New York Times decrying the court’s ruling is nothing more than an attempt to deflect from the resounding criticism they’ve received this week for publishing attorney-client communications. Perhaps Mr. Baquet could explain why his paper has not taken the First Amendment stance in regards to its coverage of the Department of Justice raids against Project Veritas. The New York Times needs to decide if it is in favor of press freedom for all, or only itself, because it can’t have it both ways.
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
The head of The New York Times then had the audacity to cite the Pentagon Papers, like there’s any comparison. Some are parroting The New York Times’ argument, The New York Times v. The United States, that these rulings are unconstitutional. Again, they would have to argue that both the Supreme Court of the State of New York and the Appellate Division of the State of New York are against the First Amendment, which is an extraordinary argument. What they fail to realize here is the difference in this particular case is that we are suing The New York Times for defamation and they are a defendant in that case. Oh, and by the way Mr. Dean Baquet, where was your citation to the Pentagon Papers and the First Amendment when the FBI raided my home and took my phones and my reporter notes. Or were you busy publishing our attorney-client memos? You said, “when a court silences journalism, it fails its citizens and undermines their right to know.” What do you think you did when your reporter called that video in Minneapolis “deceptive,” and then called it an opinion, like that’s a defense. See, that’s silencing journalism. Defamation is silencing journalism. You’re still reporting “unverified claims of voter fraud in Minnesota.” You all admitted that you got certain facts wrong about the law in Minnesota and you still haven’t corrected the article! What is that if not silencing journalism and harming the public’s right to know?
JAMES O’KEEFE, PROJECT VERITAS:
Your efforts, Mr. Baquet, at every step, have been to censor and gate-keep information. If your response to that is that we’re “not journalists,” well guess what, look at everyone in our industry except you at The New York Times. The New York Times lied to the American people about those videos in Minnesota and they are leaking our attorney-client privileged documents while being an ongoing defendant in that litigation, and that my friends, makes all the difference in the world. Maybe they should focus on the principles of the First Amendment and the legal issues at-hand, not focus on their dislike of me personally and Project Veritas.
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