(Preston Parra, Headline USA) A new document leak, published by conservative watchdog Project Veritas, reportedly offered evidence that the Biden Justice Department spied on journalists.
Wednesday’s bombshell—courtesy of an FBI special-agent-turned-whistleblower who remains on the agency’s payroll—confirmed that the federal government used covert surveillance software and tools to surreptitiously monitor Project Veritas itself.
“Tyranny happens incrementally, and it happens by a bunch of people agreeing to small injustices over and over simply to keep their paycheck and their pension,” said the whistleblower in a statement released by Project Veritas. “To maintain your paycheck and pension that gives you the Holocaust.”
The revelation followed a high-profile FBI raid last November of the homes of three Project Veritas journalists—including its founder and president, James O’Keefe—during which agents seized several cell phones.
The raid, stemming from claims that the group had illicitly obtained a copy of Ashley Biden’s private diary, drew condemnation from First Amendment civil-rights advocates on both the Right and Left.
Among the salacious details that the diary reportedly contained were allegations that Ashley, the daughter of President Joe Biden, had taken showers with her father and engaged in other inappropriate behavior during her childhood.
In March, Politico reported on the existence of leaked documents that would show Project Vertas was wrongfully surveilled for months leading up to the raid, based on a letter from its lawyers to the judge overseeing a related lawsuit.
“We have discovered that from November 2020 to April 2021, the government used compulsory demands, including secret warrants and orders, to obtain voluminous
materials from Microsoft, the email services provider used by Project Veritas, spanning the email accounts of eight journalists and Project Veritas’s Human Resources Manager,” the attorneys wrote.
In attempting to justify the surveillance and raid, federal prosecutors argued in open court that the undercover organization’s work was not considered journalism.
However, in the newly released documents, the FBI specifically labeled Project Veritas as “news media” and indicated they were part of a probe involving “Sensitive Investigative Matter.”
The leak also appeared to show collusion between the federal law agency and the lawyers for Ashley Biden, a private citizen.
On the same day that a federal investigation was set in motion against Project Veritas, Ashley’s attorney, Robert Kaplan, reportedly said, “This is insane. We should send to SDNY,” referring to the Southern District of New York federal court.
Moreover, the documents revealed that the FBI had designated its investigation as high priority due to a potential threat to national security.
In a process the whistleblower referred to as “alerting,” the FBI assigned the investigation to Threat Band 1, a slot given to cases that deal with “issues that are likely to cause the greatest damage to national interests or public safety in the coming year.”
In other documents, the FBI whistleblower outlined secret surveillance on Project Veritas journalists that was being conducted using CAST tools, which track cellular geolocation of cellular devices.
Project Veritas, requested a comment from the FBI; however, no response has been given at this time.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
