The FBI has conducted a raid on two offices in New York linked to Project Veritas group and its leader, James O'Keefe, as part of an investigation into how the diary of President Joe Biden's daughter, Ashley Biden, got stolen in the run up to the 2020 presidential election. The raids were conducted on the apartment Project Veritas operative Spencer Meads and the outlet's Westchester office.
On Friday, O'Keefe said in a video that the conservative media outlet didn't publish the diary as it was not sure about its authenticity and if the diary actually belonged to Ashley Biden and if the contents of it were truthful.
Unexpected Raid
According to the New York Times,sources told the newspaper that the search warrants were issued by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday for raids at one location on East 25th Street in Manhattan and another in Mamaroneck. Both the apartments are linked to people who have worked with Project Veritas.
The raids were carried out by both federal investigators and federal prosecutors in Manhattan.
The raid comes a year after more than 100 pages from Ashley Biden's diary were published by a right wing website under the byline of Patrick Howley. At the time of publishing the website claimed that the diary was obtained from a whistleblower at a media organization. It was largely ignored by media and other conservative news sites that were likely skeptical of its authenticity.
However, Project Veritas claimed to have not published the diary. O'Keefe at that time had claimed that once they got hold of the journal, they attempted to return it to an attorney representing Ashley Biden. The attorney refused to authenticate the diary, so he said they then turned it into law enforcement.
Diary Authentic
The other conservative website published 112-page diary on October 28, 2020, just a week before the election. A couple of days later, a Biden family representative reported to federal authorities that several personal items belonging to Ashley Biden had been stolen in a burglary.
The Department of Justice's involvement now hints that the writings are genuinely those of Ashley Biden. That investigation is now the hands of the FBI and federal prosecutors in Manhattan who work on public corruption cases.
The company that owns the website that published the diary pages is reportedly registered to the same address as a consulting company that belongs to a former British spy named Richard Setton who has worked with Project Veritas. This is the reason the raids were conducted on the properties of Project Veritas.
But O'Keefe said in the video that Project Veritas had received a grand jury subpoena and the DOJ had asked, but not ordered, the group not to disclose the existence of the subpoena. O'Keefe said that he did not know who had leaked the raid to the New York Times.
"In what world is the alleged theft of a diary investigated by the president's FBI and his DOJ? A diary. This fed investigation smacks of politics," O'Keefe said.
