Federal agents raided two New York addresses Thursday linked to conservative outlet Project Veritas as part of a probe into the apparent theft of President Biden’s daughter’s diary, a report said.
The feds executed search warrants at a Midtown Manhattan apartment, where longtime Veritas operative Spencer Meads lives, and at an address in Westchester County, the New York Times reported.
The website, run by James O’Keefe, did not publish excerpts from Ashley Biden’s diary, but another conservative website ran dozens of handwritten pages from it on Oct. 24, 2020, ahead of the presidential election, according to the report.
The website claimed at the time it obtained the diary from a whistleblower at another news organization that refused to publish information from it.
Project Veritas claimed it knew the whereabouts of the actual diary and that the whistleblower had an audio recording of Ashley admitting it belonged to her.
The Department of Justice began investigating the matter after a Biden family rep reported a number of Ashley’s belongings had been stolen in a burglary, the Times reported.
In a statement, O’Keefe claimed journalists from the outfit were being targeted despite doing their jobs “lawfully and honestly.”
“The FBI took materials of current, and former, Veritas journalists despite the fact that our legal team previously contacted the Department of Justice and voluntarily conveyed unassailable facts that demonstrate Project Veritas’ lack of involvement in criminal activity and/or criminal intent,” O’Keefe said.
“Like any reporter, we regularly deal with the receipt of source information and take steps to verify its authenticity, legality, and newsworthiness. Our efforts were the stuff of responsible, ethical journalism and we are in no doubt that Project Veritas acted properly at each and every step,” he added.
In the statement, O’Keefe acknowledged the outfit received a grand jury subpoena — and questioned how the Times found out about the raid, despite the Justice Department requesting Project Veritas keep the investigation secret.
“We do not know how The New York Times was aware of the execution of a search warrant at our reporter’s home, or the subject matter of the search warrant, as a Grand Jury investigation is secret,” O’Keefe wrote.
FBI agents and Manhattan federal prosecutors who investigate public corruption are leading the probe, according to the Times. A spokesperson for the Southern District of New York declined to comment about the raid.
A spokesperson for the New York FBI said they could not confirm the Times story, but confirmed agents “performed a law enforcement activity” at Meads’ address.
No one answered the door at the address on East 35th Street Friday afternoon.
Project Veritas is a controversial media outlet that rose to prominence among conservatives by pulling off undercover sting operations on Democratic groups and mainstream media organizations.
They’ve targeted Planned Parenthood, the advocacy group ACORN, labor unions and news organizations such as CNN and the New York Times with their undercover operations.
In 2017, The Washington Post exposed a plot by Project Veritas employees who were attempting to give the newspaper a fake story about Georgia Senate candidate Roy Moore, who had been dogged by sexual misconduct allegations.
Additional reporting by Elizabeth Rosner
