Trusting The Government to Do What is Right

For John, BLUF:  The Department of Justice, and the FBI, are large Bureaucratic organizations and sometimes act for self-preservation, rather than the larger good of the nation.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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DOJ collected Project Veritas emails but didn't reveal it to federal judge overseeing case

From Hot Air, by Writer John Sexton, 22 March 2022 3:30 PM ET.

Here is the lede plus one:

An attorney for Project Veritas sent a letter to District Court Judge Analisa Torres accusing the Department of Justice of sidestepping her prior rulings designed to protect the journalistic and attorney-client privileges of the organization.  Microsoft recently revealed that the DOJ had previously seized Project Veritas documents from a cloud account using a warrant which was not revealed to the court and which Microsoft was forbidden from revealing until recently.

At the base of all of this is the FBI investigation into how Project Veritas wound up in possession of Ashley Biden’s diary.  An FBI raid of homes belonging to Project Veritas CEO James O’Keefe and two former PV journalists, resulted in the FBI seizing a number of phones, laptops, thumb drives, etc. last November.  Project Veritas asked Judge Torres to appoint a Special Master to review the seized information and determine what should and should not be turned over to authorities.  Judge Torres agreed and ordered everything that had been gathered turned over to the Special Master.  But even after she issued that decision, the DOJ didn’t reveal the PV documents it had already collected from Microsoft and went behind Judge Torres back and the back of the Special Master she appointed to keep the previously seized documents a secret.

More recently Brietbart had an article (12 May) saying "Whistleblower Says FBI Targeting ‘News Media’".  It appears, from the outside, looking in, that the FBI and Project Veritas have developed mutual animosity and just can't let go.

The thing that bothers me is some unit of the Department of Justice writing its own rules regarding searching and seizure of information.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff