A Republican senator demanded the Justice Department reveal all communications agency employees had with the New York Times and the White House regarding the inquiry into the disappearance of a diary belonging to Ashley Biden, the youngest daughter of President Joe Biden.
Sen. Tom Cotton sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday raising concerns about the FBI raids of New York locations tied to Project Veritas, including the apartment of founder James O’Keefe, activity that the New York Times reported was connected to an investigation into the theft of the diary, pages of which were publicly disclosed in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election.
Among the questions listed in the letter, which sets a Nov. 19 deadline, were demands for clarity on who was in the loop on the investigation, as well as requests for information regarding the predication of search warrants and regulations with respect to freedom of the press, particularly in light of the Justice Department saying over the summer it would curtail the of seizing reporter records in leak investigations.
“The Department of Justice follows rules and regulations when investigating members of the news media. The regulations state the Department of Justice ‘views the use of certain law enforcement tools, including … search warrants to seek information from, or records of, non-consenting members of the news media as extraordinary measures, not standard investigatory practices,'” the Arkansas Republican wrote.
“Given the execution of these search warrants were not ‘standard investigatory practices,’ I have concerns about the origins of this investigation, the motivations of the investigations, and tactics used by your Department,” he added.
In addition to asking if anyone at the Justice Department is investigating any leaks by agency employees to the New York Times, Cotton also wants to know if the president or members of his staff had prior warning of the raids earlier this month.
“Did anyone at the White House have advance notice of the search warrants for the cellphones of journalists affiliated with Project Veritas?” Cotton asks.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the White House and the New York Times for comment. The Justice Department declined to comment.
FBI RAIDS LOCATIONS TIED TO ALLEGED THEFT OF ASHLEY BIDEN’S DIARY
A federal court ordered the Justice Department last week to stop extracting data from phones belonging to O’Keefe.
Harmeet Dhillon, a civil rights attorney representing O’Keefe’s conservative investigative group, shared the order signed by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres on Thursday.
The order said the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York reviewed the petitioner’s motion for an appointment of a special master on Wednesday and ordered the government to “confirm via email it has paused its extraction and review of the contents of Petitioner O’Keefe’s phones” by Friday.
The order also said by Nov. 16 the government “shall provide the Court with its response to Petitioner’s motion,” and by Nov. 19, “Petitioners shall provide the Court with their reply, if any.”
Attorneys with Calli Law LLC, which is representing Project Veritas, sent an email to the judge on Monday also seeking transparency from officials on alleged leaks to the New York Times related to the conservative group, according to Newsweek. Project Veritas has been engaged in defamation litigation against the New York Times in Westchester County Supreme Court since last year.
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O’Keefe told Fox News last week the FBI took two of his iPhones, which had confidential donor and source information, and called the raids an “attack on the First Amendment” and his lawyer, Paul Calli, stressed Project Veritas did not publish the diary because it could not verify its authenticity and gave it to law enforcement. Alleged pages of now-40-year-old Ashley Biden’s diary were published by a right-wing website, National File, which claims it obtained a digital copy from a Project Veritas “whistleblower.”
American Civil Liberties Union senior staff attorney Brian Hauss released a statement over the weekend slamming Project Veritas for engaging in “disgraceful deceptions” but also warned the “precedent set in this case could have serious consequences for press freedom.”
Jerry Dunleavy contributed to this report.
