The Complete Story of the FBI Raid on Project Veritas with James O'Keefe
Charlie sits down with friend of the show and founder of Project Veritas, James O'Keefe, to get the entire story of the night the FBI raided journalist James O'Keefe's New York apartment. What unfolded was a harrowing tale of the regime's abhorrent overreach, their flaunting of norms and respect for journalistic integrity, and a direct assault against the constitutional rights of Project Veritas. Charlie and James discuss this critical moment, what this means for America, and where we go from here. Also, James and Charlie discuss the future of journalism in the face of intense tech censorship and government intimidation, including where the idea of "distribution by proxy" originally came from. Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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FBI Raid on James O'Keefe00:01:48
Hey everybody, a very important conversation with James O'Keefe from Project Veritas.
The FBI showed up at his apartment at 6 a.m. and the story gets even more interesting from there.
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James O'Keeffe is here.
Buckle up.
Here we go.
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
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Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
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Turning point USA.
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Welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show, everybody.
James O'Keefe, how you doing, man?
Great to be with you.
I mention you quite often on our show.
Thank you.
I don't think you want to be as mentioned as much as I mentioned you, though.
The Signed Search Warrant00:15:42
I have to say that.
Because I'm mentioning you for things I think you want to be mentioned for, even though you did nothing wrong.
That's right.
So we have a lot to talk about and I'm a lot that I'm curious about.
So let's start with kind of just this recent development.
FBI shows up on Friday night to your journalist homes, Saturday morning to your homes.
Is that right?
They showed up on Thursday, November 3rd to our reporter homes, and then on Saturday morning at 6 a.m. to my apartment.
And what were they looking for?
Well, they had a search warrant for my cell phone.
A magistrate judge had signed a search warrant, and they were looking for the phone that I had, only the cell phones, nothing more.
And they came to my home at 6 a.m.
I sort of came to at 6 a.m.
I heard, I heard it sort of, you know, a very heavy pounding knock.
And my first thought was, you know, I just sort of, I'm not very much of a morning person, but it occurred to me, okay, the authorities must be at my door.
And the first thought that occurred to me was, how long have they been pounding on my door before they break it down?
Because they give you a courtesy knock and then they're going to use the battering ram.
So I sort of ran through the apartment to my front door.
It's pitch black.
And then I go to open the door and then I sort of think, well, this is kind of a dangerous, scary moment because if I swing the door open, are they going to shoot me?
I don't know what's going on.
So I open the door and there's 10 or 12 federal agents in blue jackets with big white lights, kind of the ones that are shining on me.
So I can't really see them fully.
They're shining the lights.
There's white lights.
They're shining white lights in my face.
My colleague Spencer told me that he looked through the keyhole and they cover up the keyhole so you can't even see who it actually is.
These are things that no one ever knows unless you get raided by the FBI.
The difference is I'm an American journalist.
So this is like a Rubicon they've never actually crossed before.
They've never crossed this Rubicon but put journalists in handcuffs.
If Trump did this to Brian Stelter, That would never be acceptable in Brian Self.
He's not a journalist, though.
I mean, that's fair.
And that's what they say about me.
So we're sort of depriving me of my humanity.
But in any event, this happens.
They spin me around.
They put me in handcuffs and they sort of throw me up against the hallway outside my apartment.
I'm in handcuffs.
And the first thing I'm thinking is, is this standard operating procedure?
What is this?
Were they handcuff you first?
They handcuffed me first.
No warrant for your arrest.
They did not show me the warrant yet.
They handcuffed me.
I did not know this was standard operating procedure.
And I thought, well, I must be under arrest.
So, of course, I asked to speak to my attorney.
Eventually, they bring me back into my apartment some 10 minutes later.
And then I'm sitting down in handcuffs.
And I say, I'd like to speak to my lawyer.
And then they said, would you, you know, of course, I don't have my lawyer's phone number memorized.
Neither do you.
None of us know our phone numbers except for maybe if it's our parents or something.
So I asked to, you know, they say, would you like to use the phone that's sitting on your nightstand?
I said, well, yes, that's where my number and my phone is.
And then as soon as I'm done making that phone call, they let me make that phone call.
As soon as I'm done, of course, my lawyer's not awake since it's 6:15 in the morning on a Saturday.
No one's awake.
As soon as I'm done finishing that call, they snatch the phone out of my hand, thus giving them access to my phone because I'd entered my password.
So it was basically, I guess, a ruse in order for them to have access to my phone.
And then they put it in the evidence bag and left the evidence bag open.
So it's conceivable that if you wouldn't have made that call, they might not have access to your phone.
It's conceivable because they can't, they have to get the password or, you know, they have to know that password.
And this is what, this is so unconscious.
So interesting.
I'm an American journalist, and they took my reporter notes, my phone.
They could never do that.
See, Charlie, they would, they could never, ever do this to a reporter at NBC News.
And as you rightly point out, many of those people are not journalists.
Propagandists.
So the prosecutor, this is in the Southern District of New York, filed a series of motions back and forth.
And thankfully, the judge in New York put an end to this.
She said, stop looking through O'Keefe's phone.
She ordered the FBI.
That's like a left-wing judge, though, right?
It's an Obama.
Well, unfortunately, we speak in the language of ideology pertaining to our judges, and that's not really how this country is supposed to be.
But let's assume that is how it is.
I don't necessarily agree with that.
President Obama appointed this particular federal judge, Article III judge, a constitutionally appointed judge, ordered the FBI to stop doing this a few days after they took the phone.
And then recently, the judge ordered what's called a special master, which is highly unusual.
And the judge cited, quote, journalistic privilege.
So this is an extraordinary, I mean, unbelievable, unprecedented thing in American history.
It's one thing for them to do this sort of thing to other people, but for them to do it to a journalist, under the First Amendment, I have a right, if someone sends me something, a document, as long as I didn't have anything to do with the obtaining of that document, it's my first own right to publish it.
And in this case, I didn't even publish it.
What more could I have done as a responsible, ethical person and journalist?
But didn't you try to turn it to law enforcement, too?
We eventually gave it to Delray police because we didn't know who it belonged to.
So we handed it into Florida local police, and we reached out to the Biden campaign for comment.
We said, well, maybe there's an off chance Joe Biden will have something to say about this.
And if he does, we'll take a look.
If he doesn't, then we're not going to do anything.
And I made the internal decision internally because I couldn't verify.
I couldn't authenticate this diary.
I didn't publish it.
And by the way, that does show the American people I'm not this political right-wing operative.
Well, if I was a political right-wing operative, I would have published the damn thing.
But I didn't because we have ethics and we have standards.
And then they raid my home.
What was on the warrant to raid your home?
Why didn't they subpoena your phone?
Why do they go straight to a search warrant?
These are great questions.
And the magistrate judge who signed the warrant, then this is truly extraordinary.
The ACLU, as long as I've known you, Charlie, this has never happened.
Has the ACL ever defended Turning Points?
Yeah, they've fallen quite far.
Well, the ACLU.
No, no.
The ACLU defended Project Veritas this month.
The reporters committee, like Wolf Blitzer is on that committee, defended Project Veritas.
Trevor Tim from the Freedom of the Press and society professional journalists, all these groups that for some reason are constantly going after you and I, they defended me because even they were like, this is so crazy.
So the reporters committee sent a legal motion to the prosecutors and said, this is nuts.
Show us the affidavit.
Show us the basis that granted you guys.
Who signed the warrant?
Not a federal judge, not a federal Article III judge, but what's called a magistrate judge.
But didn't you say a magistrate judge was approved?
A magistrate judge signed that.
A magistrate judge is like a lower judge in the federal court system to handle matters such as these.
A magistrate judge named Sarah Cave in Manhattan, the Southern District of New York, signed the warrant.
And the affidavit, which is the basis for that warrant, is sealed.
Only way we can see it is if charges are filed at some point.
So we'll never get to see that warrant.
And Sarah Cave, the magistrate judge, sent the reporters committee letter to the prosecutors, like, yeah, please respond to this.
So this has all been happening, Charlie, in the last month.
Let me ask you, if you think you lived in Dallas, do you think that a judge would have signed off on this?
It's a really good question because we don't know what was going through that magistrate judge's mind when she signed that.
I'll speak just for our listeners.
So a subpoena, any FBI agent can issue a subpoena.
You go to a printer, you press print, that's a subpoena.
Give me your texts.
By this day, your lawyers deal it.
Search warrant is a totally different threshold.
It's an aggressive.
No, but the FBI is not allowed to do a search warrant alone.
Unless they get judicial over.
That's what I'm saying, is that it takes two branches of government, technically, to go through your home.
That's correct.
However, I'm saying technically.
No, you're absolutely everything you've said is correct.
I just wanted to make a few additional comments.
Sometimes, and again, I'm speculating here, maybe that maybe the magistrate judge doesn't fully understand the full extent.
We don't know what was in the affidavit.
That she saw an affidavit.
An affidavit is the basis.
A statement of facts by the FBI.
By the Bureau.
By saying, hey, we want permission to go to James O'Keefe's apartment.
Here's why.
Correct.
And we don't know what Ashley Biden and her lawyer alleged.
And by the way, let me remind people, it's a crime to lie to the FBI.
We don't know what it is that they alleged.
But now it's come out, especially after this New York Times article.
Every day, Charlie, they write another front-page hit piece at the New York Times and Washington Post.
Every day.
We're getting used to it.
Oh, every day.
This is yesterday, front page.
Two days ago.
What was that one about?
This was all about the circumstances by which the diary was apparently left at this apartment in Florida.
Well, we're going to get into the diary in a second because it's the whole thing so this diary was like sort of left there based upon the statements by the people who found it.
And we don't know what's in the affidavit, but this happens.
And they come into my home and finally they show me this search warrant.
And the warrant lists a series of possible crimes that either I may have committed or I know somebody else has committed.
And the crimes are, this is wild.
It says misprison of a felony.
None of you know what that means.
And I didn't know whether I don't either until I talked to the people on my team.
Apparently, it's that you sort of knew that a crime has been committed and you didn't do anything about it, which is a bystander law.
It's a bystander law, which is never very hard to prosecute.
Which has never been prosecuted.
I was going to say, yeah.
Number two, accessory after the fact.
That's so preposterous.
Do you know why they created these laws?
For the mob.
Because they created these because they couldn't get them on anybody else.
Journalism.
Of course.
And the Washington Post, if you're a national security reporter and you get a secretly leaked illegal document given to you by a third party.
Do you know what it's called, Charlie?
When the Washington Post or the New York Times publishes a document that someone else illegally obtained?
It's called a Tuesday and a Thursday.
Now do you understand the implications for them coming into my house and putting me in hand?
And the argument, let me just finish it.
The argument comes fully down to whether, and this is semantics, it's nomenclature.
The prosecutor said before Your Honor, well, Mr. O'Keefe is not a journalist.
I'm paraphrasing the motion.
Mr. O'Keeffe is not a journalist.
Why not?
Because he doesn't get consent from the people he reports on, which is an argument so effing absurd because the very raison d'être behind investigative reporting is to report things that people don't want reported.
So now do you see how fundamental this fight is?
Yeah, I mean, that's like saying the New York Times didn't get Trump's consent before publication.
That's outrageous.
Yeah, but let me ask you a question.
That's outrageous.
Did they have any evidence that you suspected or knew this diary was stolen?
Didn't you ask?
No.
I had no idea that you were a story.
That's the most important thing, right?
You didn't even know if it was authentic.
We did not know.
I sent an email to my staff, and it was a tough call because in this diary, there were private things that were said.
But I did not know, first of all, I didn't know with 100% certainty whether the diary was hers.
And if there was a possibility it wasn't, I couldn't take that chance.
I need to be at Veritas.
We have high ethical standards.
So I couldn't authenticate it.
And even if I could authenticate it 100%, I didn't know if the contents of the diary occurred.
I had written diaries as a kid.
I said some things like poetry.
I don't know what it means.
And I didn't feel comfortable.
And I understand some people disagree with that decision, but I didn't feel comfortable going there unless I really 100% was certain.
So the FBI snatches your phone out of your hand.
Yeah.
What happens after that?
They take the phone.
Finally, they say, are you going to behave yourself, et cetera?
I'm paraphrasing these agents.
There were about 10 or 12 of them.
All wearing masks.
Westchester County.
They had vests on that said FBI, jackets, FBI.
Kind of looks like one of those people.
30s and 40s mostly.
And finally, they do this, search my home for two hours.
I have a two-bedroom apartment.
And they would move me into one room and search the other room so I couldn't see what they were doing.
Is that illegal?
I don't know.
Charlie, this whole thing is illegal.
The whole premise is illegal.
The Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, put out a memo in July explicitly prohibiting these search warrants against the press.
The New York Times, Michael Schmidt, who's been writing articles about us every week, even he said this is a really aggressive move for the FBI to execute a search warrant against a media company is the most aggressive thing they could possibly do.
And there are laws against it.
And so he's not a journalist.
Well, the Privacy Protection Act doesn't make a distinction whether you're considered a journalist or not.
You can't do this.
So this happens.
And finally, I'm sitting on my bed.
They've searched the whole place for two hours, taking stuff.
And they make me sign this document.
Only my phone's left, my iPad and my laptop.
Very unusual.
And finally, the lead agent, this shorter guy with a scruffy beard, I think his name is Tony.
He looks at me and he says, Mr. O'Keefe, do you have any questions?
And I'm sitting there.
I guess I'm in a state of what might be considered shock.
Not yet fully in shock, just like this is like a dream sequence.
I'm still dreaming.
I'm still asleep in my bed at this.
I cannot believe that I'm going through this.
And there's like a couple agents hovering over me the whole time.
And this lead agent, Tony, says, You have any questions?
And I almost said this, Charlie.
I did not say this because experience has taught me don't speak to federal agents without an attorney present.
What I almost looked right into his eyes, I looked right into this guy's eyes.
I guess he could hear me say it even though I didn't mouth the words.
And I said, You ever raid a reporter's home before, Tony?
But I did not say those words.
And I actually believe that half the people in my apartment, these FBI agents, maybe half of them were actually fans of Project Veritas.
And maybe they're being told what to do.
Maybe even they go, What are we doing?
What is this country coming to?
You got 120,000 people working for the Department of Justice.
And is there one person with the stones to speak up?
One?
Give me one.
I can name tens of thousands of soldiers go overseas and die for their country.
They know they'll get attacked if they do, which they should speak up.
So let me ask you.
So then they leave.
Do you have any fear that they might raid your apartment after they raid the other one on Thursday evening?
Thursday, whatever?
I didn't really think.
I did issue a statement.
We issued a statement on that Friday around 1 o'clock, but the signature of the magistrate judge was 11:18 a.m.
So my statement had nothing to do with them getting the permission to execute the search warrant.
They had gone to Spencer Mead's home and Eric Cochran's home, took their stuff, didn't find anything because there's nothing incriminating.
Fear of Speaking Up00:02:05
We've broken no laws, obviously.
And then they got the permission to go after me, the CEO of the company.
But we know what this is really about.
They want to try to disrupt the choke point of the most effective exposure project against the vaccine industry, the open borders, voter fraud.
Like it kind of all, there's only one organization exposing this stuff, right?
Yeah, and that's the whole point.
But of course it is.
James, like, let's stop with the one-liners.
We don't live in that country anymore.
You know that.
If we don't get back to that country, this country's headed towards civil war.
Well, I mean, look, but James, they've already raided your home.
They have your phone.
I mean, magistrate, judge, or not, babysitting your phone, they already have the contents of the phone.
You know that.
They're not going to listen to some stupid magistrate judge.
They have all your contents.
Well, I'm a little bit more hopeful than I'm cynical, as you could believe.
I understand, but I do believe that moment, Charlie, where the ACLU and these groups were defending us, I view that as a very hopeful moment because I think in the Venn diagram of left and right, there still is this sliver where we all agree.
There still is a very thin line that I'm trying to expand because I think what unites us can be very powerful.
Did you ever game out that the federal government might come for your phone one day?
You know, there was always this, we talk about manifesting fear.
I did go on Tim Poole's show and said almost directly to Christopher Ray, I was like, you know, the FBI is listening right now.
But we don't break the law.
And I think I don't know.
That doesn't matter, though, to the FBI.
Well, you know that.
It matters to me.
I don't break the law.
I think that country's dead.
This is an area where you and I could talk much longer than the time we have about political philosophy.
But I believe that this is America and it was or it is.
But we are Americans and therefore perhaps it could be different than in any other part of history.
No, I'm saying it was because you don't raid the home of a political dissident.
Suing the New York Times00:06:55
Let's forget journalists.
You are a journalist.
What you really are, though, is a threat.
It's that simple.
They want to take the king off the chessboard.
There's no one else doing investigative work.
Right.
Right.
But they do this at every single corner.
This is precisely.
And the New York Times.
Oh, let me add another thing which you may know.
The New York Times reporter, Michael Schmidt, within minutes of me taking out of handcuffs, guess what he knew?
He knew the subject of the search warrant.
Yeah, of course he did.
Now, maybe his neighbors could have tipped off the New York Times, but how would he know the subjects of a grand jury subpoena?
But then it gets worse.
So then the other part of the thing I want to talk to you about, which might be the most grotesque thing, you know this, is another violation of constitutional rights.
How did the New York Times know the contents of your privileged memos?
We don't know.
It's a great question.
While this all happened at the same time.
So talk about that whole thing.
Well, the New York Times got lawyer memos.
Some of these lawyer memos pertain as to the very litigation that we're involved in against the New York Times.
In other words, you're suing the New York Times.
I sue the New York Times for defamation.
In March of this year, we win a historic victory in that case.
We win past what's called motion to dismiss in a defamation lawsuit, which is really hard to do.
You have to prove what's called actual malice.
I have to prove the New York Times lied about me.
And you and I have talked about this before.
This video we did about Minnesota.
And the New York Times called it deceptive and disinformation and misinformation.
And a judge in New York ruled that there was enough evidence for the lawsuit to proceed to discovery, which means I get to depose the New York Times under oath.
I have nothing to hide in a deposition.
Please do depose me.
You'll find that I'm a pretty ethical guy who's trying to do the right thing.
They have everything to hide.
They do not want to be deposed.
So the judge rules this.
It was a big deal.
And then after the FBI raid, the New York Times becomes obsessed.
I mean, obsessed.
It's almost like they have a James O'Keefe voodoo doll.
They stick pins in.
Dean Backhay up there sticking his pins in the James O'Keefe doll.
Every other day, there's another big, long, you know, front page thing.
And the New York Times gets access to many of our attorney-client privileged payments.
Did they get them through the lawsuit or through the raid?
They didn't get them through the lawsuit.
Well, then it had to be the raid, right?
They haven't entered discovery just quite yet.
It has to be the raid.
Charlie, I don't want to say how they got them.
Because it was right after the raid.
It was right after the raid.
They published them right after the raid.
And what's even more extraordinary, this is like something out of science fiction movie, whatever.
That same judge, which granted the permission to...
The magistrate?
No, no.
A different judge involved in the New York Times defamation lawsuit, a New York Supreme Court state judge, then orders the New York Times to stop publishing these attorney-client privilege memos, which is the first time the New York Times has been stopped from doing something in like 50 years.
So this is happening, and this is all happening.
Can you sue them for the memo thing?
Well, we are suing them.
And I went to a hearing.
But you're suing them for the defamation.
So, yes, we go back into court, which is we're in the middle of the litigation.
So the judge orders us to appear.
This is a couple weeks ago, the day before Thanksgiving or something like that.
And the judge looks at the New York Times lawyer, and I'm in a courtroom.
You have to understand how surreal the circumstances are.
There's the New York Times lawyers and me, and I'm suing them, and we're all like physically together.
I'm in a courtroom in New York State of all places.
In Manhattan?
In Westchester County, White Plains, New York, the Supreme Court of the state of New York, and the judge is up there looking at the New York Times lawyer.
And the judge says, you're both media companies.
Project Veritas is to me.
He's calling us a media company.
That's a good fact pattern.
And the New York Times lawyer starts talking, and the judge goes, that'd be the first time you quoted me accurately, counselor.
So the judge was pissed that the New York Times was mischaracterizing his order as against the First Amendment.
Okay, Charlie, this is what we do at Project Veritas.
We fight them everywhere.
We fight them everywhere.
And this is why we can't lose.
It's a paradox for Project Veritas to lose on any of these issues because if I lose, Charlie, listen, if I lose on the issue of whether I'm a journalist in federal court, then it'll go to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
And the issue before Your Honor is whether I'm a journalist.
And if I lose that, it'll go to the United States Supreme Court.
And if I lose on the issue of whether I'm a journalist, game over.
But so you don't know how they got the memos.
You just have suspicion.
Well, I know for certain, I know for certain that there's only one way that Mike Schmidt of the New York Times could know the subject of a secret grand jury subpoena while I'm still in handcuffs.
Minutes, minutes.
Yes, no, I get that one.
The memos were.
People familiar with the matter.
Yes.
People in the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the New York Times are working with them.
They're aligned with them.
They're supposed to be journalists.
They're proxies.
We know that.
They're proxies.
They're proxies of the security.
And it's not right.
It's not right.
No, it's not right, but it's not going to change anytime soon.
You're helping change it, I should say.
But the memo thing is a whole different level because unless computers were hacked and then, wait, that would be illegal, wouldn't it, BJ?
Yes.
There's no way.
This is the point.
Is the New York Times publishing memos is illegal?
And can I add one thing?
Is that correct?
It would be unlikely.
The First Amendment has its absolutes.
You can't publish attorney client privilege.
I wouldn't do that.
Period.
Memos from my story.
You can't do that.
There are certain limits of the First Amendment.
It is not absolute.
And this is common sense journalism school 101.
But, Charlie, and then this week, they do another front-page hit piece.
They're upset.
If it gives you any comfort, no one reads this crap.
James doesn't even know they're doing it.
James O'Keefe voodoo doll.
They do another piece, and then they say, because we reached out for comment to Joe Biden about the diary, before we made the decision not to publish it, we wanted to do our due diligence and everything in our power to try to do the right thing.
And then they try to interpret this as, quote, leverage.
So Mike Schmidt says, in an attempt to leverage.
But Mike Schmidt of the New York Times edited out the other part of the email.
We'd like your comment.
We're doing a story in good faith.
And then Rachel Maddow this week said that we extorted President Biden by asking for comment.
Extortion.
You're going to sue her?
Well, someone already did, and someone already did, and the judge said, well, she's just an opinion person, so it doesn't matter.
They defend it in court as opinion.
That's always their defense.
It's just an opinion, Your Honor.
But that's not how they present it.
And one more thing, and then I'll stop.
The New York Times does another hit piece, and they say, documents show how far Project Veritas' deceptive reporting tactics can go before running afoul of the federal law.
The Pfizer Trial Defense00:07:32
What a way to word that.
Documents show how far they could go before running afoul.
Do you know another way to say that?
We check with lawyers to make sure everything we did was legal.
But do you see how they worded it?
Yeah, of course.
I know.
I read the same article.
They use language in a manipulative, they use innuendo and supposition to make some, it's almost like you have to twist it.
You have to put it through a filter to understand what they're actually reporting.
Do you regret not moving Veritas out of New York?
Listen, this is an issue that divides a lot of people that work for me.
And I am very conflicted about it, Charlie, because I'm from the Hudson Valley.
I'm from the I was from Chicago.
I got out for this exact reason.
I know.
And there's something to be said for getting out.
But I just want to give you both sides.
I'm not a person who runs away from the fight.
I'm not a person who backs down, cows down, runs away, because maybe I reject the premise that this country is headed to a place where that's what we must do.
And maybe I'm a person who'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
And maybe I'm a person who I'm fighting these battles with the New York State Supreme Court, special masters in the Southern District.
I'm fighting in places where I'm fighting for principles in those places, and I think it's my imperative to do so.
So I'm conflicted.
And by the way, home is where the heart is.
I grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey, Rockland County, New York.
So that's where I'm from.
I hear you.
It's just it puts you in a different, whole different legal world.
You know that.
I understand.
NRA, NRA went through the exact same thing.
Right.
And I get it, but I actually do think that Viritas is so clean and so ethical that if they want to put me in jail for doing my job, I say let them.
Okay.
How are you holding up with all this?
I'm doing great.
I have a great team, many of whom are here.
I know you like to call them the entourage.
They are James Kleinbook.
It's a football spot.
Last time he gave me a hard time, you know?
I did give you a hard time.
You like to give me a hard time sometimes.
Someone has to.
I've known you for a long time.
By the way, I'm going to trial against your neighborhood buddy Bob Kramer in March.
I know proximity.
I'm getting aside.
I've always publicized your stuff.
No, no, I'm not trying to do it.
Thank you.
And thank you for doing that.
Of course, I'm just going to go.
No, Bob Kramer's a bad dude.
We're going to trial.
What's going on with him?
That's Jan Schakowski's husband, right?
Going to federal jury trial March 9th in D.C.
He sued me for, get this.
Breach of fiduciary duty for reporting on him.
The issue before the court is whether I breached a fiduciary duty.
It's so absurd.
To who, your donors or to your?
To him.
What do you owe to him?
These questions are rhetorical in nature and there's no answer to them.
And we will win.
And if we don't win, you're starting to sense a pattern.
But wait, he's suing you for what?
Breach of fiduciary duty.
He's a donor to yours or something?
No, He thinks that because our undercover people were recording him in his office and exposing what was going on four years ago, that we have a fiduciary duty to him.
So he's suing me somehow, which reasons we don't know.
This got past summary judgment.
Maybe the judge didn't like me or something.
And now we're going to trial.
But I don't settle.
And we're going to win.
So that's in March.
Everyone listening, if journalists can get 6 a.m. raids.
And I'm going to go through some of the facts.
We actually didn't talk about the facts of it, right?
So we got about 10 minutes left.
So Joe Biden's daughter goes to some sort of drug clinic, right?
Allegedly has a diary, and then it somehow falls into your lap.
That's basic, just so everyone knows the story.
Is that right?
A source came to us.
Tipsters tipped us off to this and showed us this diary.
You don't publish it.
We made the decision not to publish it.
Yeah.
And so I suppose the most obvious question is they published, ProPublica published illegally leaked tax returns of the wealthiest people on the planet.
As long as they had nothing, as long as ProPublica had nothing to do with the obtaining of the tax returns, it's their First Amendment right to publish that material.
As unconscionable as it might be to you and I, they have a right to do that.
No, I mean, I'm not fighting that, but the same, is there not an equal protection?
That is precisely the issue at hand, is equal protection under the law.
Whether there's equality before the law.
And of course, this whole thing is falling apart.
The issue before the court, and there's a subpoena here that the FBI has issued, you know, subpoena for documents and whatnot.
To you?
They had issued such a subpoena.
Before this warrant.
Well, I think it's concurrent to it.
And I'm not the lawyer, so I don't want to speak out of turn because I don't know the technical issues, but subpoena concurrent to the warrant.
And we gave them...
In case they didn't find what they wanted.
Right.
And we gave them a list of the things that they had asked for, but also we did not send the materials because we intend to fight that subpoena as journalists, as any journalist would.
And the issue before the court is going to be, of course, do we have the same protections as the New York Times, Charlie, and NBC News and ProPublica.
And of course, to your point, those organizations are doing the bidding of big pharma.
Do you know the CEO of Pfizer said days before the raid that he's working with the FBI on misinformation?
That's what he said.
And you did a story against Pfizer, didn't you?
I did a huge story on Pfizer.
A story where the vice president of Pfizer was saying we're lying to the people about the vaccine development.
About the vaccine developed fetus.
Aborted fetuses.
And she said, don't tell the American people that we're using aborted fetal cells in the development of the vaccine.
So I quote her.
I quoted the woman.
I didn't opine on it.
It wasn't my opinion.
It wasn't a Q conspiracy theory.
It was her words.
And then the CEO of Pfizer says, we were working with, and he's a European guy.
We are working with the FBI on misinformation.
We have FBI misinformation, dark groups.
Obviously, he's referring to Project Veritas.
What other group is exposing Pfizer in this way?
Do you think he ordered a hit on you, Vietnam?
I'm not going to speculate.
I'm going to give you facts.
And the facts are that the CEO of Pfizer Pharmaceutical and the journalism establishment and the Department of Justice are all working together.
And the only institution, I guess, that is fighting back in this particular way via hidden cameras and exposés is Veritas and you guys.
And that's why I believe that we cannot lose, both literally and figuratively.
It is a paradox for us to lose because if we lose, then everyone will see it for what it is.
Just like James Risen.
Do you know that James Risen went all the way to the United States Supreme Court?
They had a subpoena against, he's a journalist.
And he said, and they said, we're going to put you in jail.
He said, put me in jail.
I'm ready to go to jail.
He took it to the Court of Appeals, to the United States, and right at the last minute, Risen says, okay, put me in handcuffs.
Where's the handcuffs?
They withdrew the subpoena.
It was a game of chicken.
It's a game of the will.
What are you willing to endure for your principles?
What are you willing to endure?
And I say, I'm going to die on this hill because this is a right so fundamental.
It goes back to Cicero.
The right to repeat something someone tells you, and you're going to take that right away from me.
Well, you know what?
I've done nothing illegal.
I've done everything ethical.
Put me in handcuffs.
Project Veritas Experience00:04:32
That's my position.
They might.
They have multiple times.
First in New Orleans, and we know how that ended.
You won the lawsuit.
Those U.S. attorneys were disbarred.
They lost their law licenses.
They were anonymously blogging about me online while they were prosecuting me in 2010.
Names were Jim Letton and Sal Perricone.
And they eventually lost their law licenses.
They were federal U.S. attorneys?
He was the lead U.S. attorney in the southern district of Louisiana, Eastern District of Louisiana.
And he got disbarred after they came after me.
So the truth always wins.
It may take a while, but I believe the truth always comes out in the end.
I really believe that.
Veritas doing well.
You guys have a lot of support after all this?
We have a lot of support.
And by the way, I have to thank you because I'm banned on Twitter because I quoted CNN and they didn't like that with that.
Why do they always ban me for quoting the other guy?
Why aren't they banning the other guy for saying the deed?
In any event, you and Benny and Jack Rasibak and Candace Owens, but particularly you, you guys have been embedding our videos on Twitter.
And thank you.
I mean that.
Distribution by proxy.
You taught me that.
Everyone's talking distribution by proxy.
You were the source of that.
Like years ago, you said, James, distribution by proxy.
And then suddenly Alex Jones.
Distribution by proxy.
So you came.
I just want the world on the record for the record.
Charlie Kirk taught me distribution by proxy.
That's when Twitter was fun, man.
It was like for two years, it was a great place.
Yeah.
And now it's not.
Project Veritas.com, if they want to support you, you're a 501c3, is that right?
We're a tax-deductible charity.
And, you know, we have all these supporters that give $5,000, like 80,000 people now, I think, support us.
And we appreciate that.
And appreciate you having us here at this event to really put on quite a show.
Yeah, you put on a great show.
People want to see the O'Keefe show, talk about that briefly.
That was something.
Thank you.
That was like cats.
It was like cats.
It was like cats meets Dangerous Minds, meets Hamilton, meets Charlie Kirk, meets Rob.
Lately, Ms. Rob.
It was a wild fans of the opera.
It was a lot of genres.
Chandelier comes through.
And this is, you know, as I said to you last time we sat down, I think I'm more of an artist than a political person.
I'm more motivated by the artistic aspects of what I do.
And, you know, justice is very much like art, and journalism is art.
So we're putting on this show, we're calling it the Project Veritas Experience.
Where is it going to be held?
Miami, Florida, Fountain Blue, January 29th.
And it's the first time we've ever done our own event.
It coincides with the launch of my next book, American Muckraker.
So the website is project VeritasExperience.com.
Project VeritasExperience.com.
If you make a donation on that website, you'll get a ticket to go to the show.
Of any size.
I think it's like $250, something like that.
We're trying to price it fair enough, but so we can break even on the cost.
The production will be extraordinary.
It'll be, it'll, you saw three acts or four acts.
There's going to be like 12 to 15 acts.
Wow.
So the acts are awesome.
It'll be like Hamilton.
It'll be like artistic.
You came in all sorts of different things.
You came in like a jumpsuit.
I don't know if you wore the jumpsuit or not.
I did.
Yeah, you came in like a priest thing.
Do you know why we chose the song OPP?
I'm not going to say aloud what that abbreviation means from Naughty by Nature.
Because when I was in jail in New Orleans, people don't know this.
I think you do, but your audience is so young.
This was 11 years ago.
They put me in jail.
Another thing that was falsely accused that I was exonerated for.
And while I was in the New Orleans Parish Prison, all the jumpsuits said like OPP because it was New Orleans Parish Prison.
I couldn't get that song out of my head when I was in jail.
So that's why we decided that Naughty by Nature to be the soundtrack for that scene.
Project VeritasExperience.com.
Yes, please go to that website and get your tickets to go to the show.
Very good.
James, God bless you, man.
Thanks for coming on.
God bless.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
If you want to support our show, go to charliekirk.com/slash support.
Thank you so much for listening, everybody.
God bless.
For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.