For Immediate Release: June 8, 2022
Contact: Ryan Hite, Communications Director
Corruption in the Department of Justice Makes Strange Bedfellows
Washington D.C.: “Real journalism that exposes the truth is hard to come by these days, and the FBI is making it even more difficult,” said Ed Martin, president of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles. “The FBI has unabashedly harassed Project Veritas, invading even their private homes to obtain information. This clear violation of their First Amendment right to free press has even prompted the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to get involved.”
A federal probe into the alleged theft of Ashley Biden’s diary led the FBI to conduct raids on the homes of Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe and other organization members in November 2021. The government prosecutor argued that this was acceptable, claiming that O’Keefe and Project Veritas’s work can’t be considered as real journalism.
O’Keefe said of the ACLU’s recent statement: “Executing a search warrant against a journalist so the feds can look at your source material to make sure your [sic] not doing anything illegal — is so unconstitutional and morally wrong that even groups like the ACLU and reporters committee are coming to the defense of Project Veritas.”
Martin continued, “First the Department of Homeland Security planned to tell Americans what was or wasn’t truth, and now the FBI thinks they can decide what is or isn’t journalism? This blatant political wielding of the DOJ must stop! An FBI whistleblower that sat down with O’Keefe revealed that the government has designated Veritas as ‘news media’ from the very beginning. The FBI can’t have it both ways! Free press and free speech aren’t protected only when it’s convenient for the Deep State. Good for the ACLU for jumping into the fray. It’s going to take all of us, no matter our political persuasion, to fight the corruption that has gripped our government.
“Using federal power to persecute your political opponents or speakers of the truth is a cautionary mile marker dangerously far down the highway to tyranny. We must end this corruption and strip it out of our executive departments.”
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