James O’Keefe, Founder and CEO of Project Veritas, published a shocking video showing that over a period of sixteen months, Biden’s DOJ and the SDNY spied on journalists by filing a series of secret warrants, orders, and a subpoena to surreptitiously collect from Microsoft and other companies our privileged, and constitutionally protected, communications. Microsoft was bound by a secrecy order not to divulge what the SDNY was doing. The net effect is their conduct directly violated Judge Analisa Torres’ order appointing a Special Master who is compelled to apply journalistic privileges to our journalists’ materials. The SDNY chose not to inform Judge Torres, or the Special Master, Judge Barbara Jones. Project Veritas filed a motion this week to require the SDNY to comply with the Special Master order by stopping their review of the surreptitiously obtained materials. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
And would the U.S. or NATO respond with military action if he did use chemical weapons?
We would respond.
We would respond if he uses it.
The nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use.
Joe Biden is a great president.
He is a gift.
He's perfect.
He's perfect for now.
How high do you think oil prices can get at the bump?
You know, it's conceivable that they could move higher.
Freedom is back in style.
Welcome to the revolution.
Here we are coming to your city.
Gonna play our guitars and sing you a contra song.
Sean Hennity, the new Sean Hannity show.
More behind the scenes information on breaking news and more bold, inspired solutions for America.
This is a special edition of the Sean Hannity Show.
America Trapped Behind Enemy Lines.
Day number 223.
All right, our two Sean Hannity show on this Friday, 800-941 Sean on number.
You want to be a part of the program.
So the story breaks about Project Veritas, and we find out they found out through Microsoft and legal documents, and it got deeper than we ever thought.
Now, remember the FBI raid on Project Veritas journalists' homes.
But anyway, the story that broke earlier in the week, we covered it on television.
We have more time to go into the details here on radio.
But on Tuesday, a new video from Project Veritas revealed legal documents obtained from the Microsoft Corporation showing that the Biden Department of Justice has been spying on Project Veritas journalists leading up to the November raids of their homes.
Project Veritas obtained the documents that show that apparently, I guess, DOJ met people spying on Project Veritas journalists.
Well, before the FBI raided the homes of their journalists, obviously, this brings in a huge First Amendment issue.
Very interestingly, the statement given by the ACLU, no fan of anything conservative or anything Project Veritas, they even said we deplore Project Veritas.
It says, but we're concerned that the precedent set by this case could have serious consequences for press freedom.
We're deeply troubled by the reports.
The Department of Justice obtained secret electronic surveillance orders requiring sweeping disclosure of all content of communications associated with Project Veritas email accounts, including attorney-client communications.
Compounding these concerns, all government-suppressed information about the existence of the electronic surveillance orders, even after the investigation became public knowledge and the district court appointed a special master to supervise prosecutors' access to Project Veritas' sensitive materials.
By the way, it's a fairly common thing where you have somebody whose only job would be to delineate that which is private and personal or protected by the First Amendment, for example.
And that would be then other materials that might be relevant to some said investigation.
But anyway, the government must immediately suspend its review of materials obtained pursuant to its electronic surveillance orders and fully disclose the extent of its action so that the court can consider appropriate relief.
Now, let's go back, Project Veritas and James O'Keefe announcing all of this, discussing what has happened.
In November 2021, the FBI raids our homes and seizes 47 electronic devices, including cell phones, laptops, and thumb drives.
Within five days, U.S. District Court Judge Annalisa Torres ordered the Southern District of New York to pause its review by devices, and within a month, ordered the SDNY to turn our seized materials over to a special master who had supervised the SDNY's review to protect our First Amendment and journalistic privileges.
Recently obtained legal documents from Microsoft Corporation reveal that despite Judge Torres's orders, between November 2020 and April 2021, the Department of Justice went to six magistrates and obtained a series of secret warrants, orders, and a subpoena to surreptitiously collect privileged communications and contacts of eight American journalists, myself included, from Microsoft.
The DOJ even sought and obtained numerous secrecy orders preventing Microsoft from disclosing the surveillance to anyone.
The SDNY also went around Judge Torres and the Special Master and obtained two secrecy orders after the Special Master had been appointed.
Project Veritas is immediately filing a motion demanding that the federal government disclose if it engaged in covert spying of our journalists by secretly demanding production of our protected materials from any other businesses like Microsoft.
The SDNY's surveillance of Project Veritas journalists was done as part of the DOJ's unprecedented investigation into Ashley Biden's diary.
As far as we know, federal law enforcement has never before investigated an abandoned diary.
The documents collected from these email accounts date back as far as January 2020, eight months before we even knew the diary existed.
As Project Veritas' motion says, the fact that the government secretly obtained emails from three different Project Veritas journalists dating back from eight months prior to the news gathering conduct that the government is scrutinizing shocks the conscience.
While the special master litigation proceeded, the government apparently misled the court by omission by not disclosing that it had already obtained other privileged materials.
The SDNY was ordered to turn over all materials to the special master.
They didn't.
The SDNY was ordered to stop reviewing our materials.
They didn't.
The SDNY has an obligation to be honest with the court.
They weren't.
All right, John, CEO, founder of Project Veritas, James O'Keefe, is with us now.
We got to, I think, go back to the beginning so people fully, completely comprehend and understand.
My understanding is someone approached you and Project Veritas with information, a diary, that they said was that of Joe Biden's daughter, correct?
That's correct, Sean.
We had tipsters approach us and they said that they had this diary.
This diary was apparently abandoned in a house in Florida where she was staying.
And we came across it.
We paid for the rights for this document.
And then we went about trying to corroborate it.
At the time, I thought I failed to authenticate the diary, Sean.
And now it turns out it has been authenticated by the FBI and the New York Times.
So we did a better job than we thought we did.
But we decided not to publish it, Sean.
And that's when a couple weeks after this, this is in November of 2020, right before the presidential election.
Turns out we found out in the last 10 days that the Department of Justice sought secret warrants.
These are called sneak and peek warrants against Microsoft Corporation.
We use Microsoft for our emails.
And they got magistrate judges to sign them.
And they listed various crimes on these, probably cause being blackmail and stalking and other strange crimes that vanished when the FBI raided my home in November of this past year.
So a lot to unpack here, but this does involve the president's daughter's diary.
Now, let me go to this.
So you had it.
You did your due diligence.
You couldn't get to the point where you had the corroboration that met the standard for you to publish it.
My understanding from other sources, not from you, is that there are very, very controversial accusations against prominent people in this diary.
Can you confirm that?
I am not willing, Sean, to discuss the substance in the diary.
I think that I could, but I'm choosing not to do that with 20 million people listening.
I think there are some things that public eyes should not see.
And I think that even if I can with 100% certainty authenticate the document, I can't verify if what is attested in the document actually occurred.
So I haven't been able to corroborate whether the things discussed therein happened.
Can I ask this question?
Are things discussed therein beyond troubling to anybody that has a conscience and a soul?
Yes, there are some unclear but potentially disturbing things discussed, and some of them are very personal.
I won't push you any further because I have very good sources like this.
And I think the government would love for me to make this political, and that's certainly what they're projecting onto me.
But we have to- Well, it's interesting because just the opposite.
Based on what I said, it would be more than political.
It would be explosive.
And that goes into your ethics and decision-making.
And interestingly, I thought about myself in the same dilemma.
I don't really know what I do.
I don't have as much detail as you do, so it's hard.
Let me go now to the issue of the FBI raid.
Tell us about who got raided, when that happened, and then we'll get to Microsoft.
Well, my colleagues, Spencer Meads, and Eric Cochran, Project Veritas colleagues, got raided November 3rd.
They took their hard drives, cell phones, laptops, thumbnail, cell phones.
And then I issued a statement, and then they came to my apartment in Westchester, New York, and raided me.
And Sean, you aired video this week of my colleague Eric Cochrane being raided.
It's very disturbing.
There were guns, there were flashlights.
They took all of us.
They put us in handcuffs.
It's very rare for the Department of Justice to ever issue search warrants against journalists.
Obviously, the Attorney General expressly forbids such things unless he himself gives permission.
It's unclear whether Merrick Garland actually did that.
We assume he did not.
We assume the secret warrants were not approved by William Barr in November of 2020 because there were only two weeks or so that passed between Ashley Biden knowing about, reached out to her and her father for comment, and when this actually occurred.
So it's probably done through the Southern District of New York, made a decision there in New York City in federal court.
I get raided, and on my warrant that I'm holding in my hand, it lists various crimes.
I haven't been charged with these crimes.
They were just listed on the search warrant as things like transporting material across state lines, accessory after the fact.
I mean, these are absurd things to throw at a journalist, which journalists get sent documents all the time that may or may not be stolen.
We didn't know.
The source approached us with a document.
The Supreme Court protects the rights of journalists to print documents that sources send them.
See, this is a very important point here because if you are a conservative, you've got a very different standard than any liberal.
Look at the case of the Hunter Biden laptop issue.
I was offered it many times, but based on what my sources told me were on it, my lawyer was adamant that you can't accept it for reasons you're describing.
Even though I am a member of the press, I am a talk show host.
I do straight news.
I do investigative reporting.
I give my opinion.
We talk about every issue, culture, sports, you name it.
I'm like an entire newspaper.
So that's why when people, oh, you don't call yourself a journalist.
No, I'm not a journalist, but journalism is part of what I do.
And frankly, I'm more right than the so-called journalists in this country are, and I've been proven right again and again.
But putting that aside, even though I should have those very protections you're talking about, this standard would never apply to the New York Times or the Washington Post.
We even have a court precedent involving both those papers.
They're called the Pentagon Papers case stolen material that they ended up printing.
Yeah, you'd have a right as a talk show host and or a journalist or even a citizen to publish that which someone transmits to you.
It's a Supreme Court case beyond the public.
But my lawyer, looking out for my best interest, said, here's the problem.
You're not even allowed to have it in your possession as a citizen, as a member of the press, I am.
But he said, they're not going to care in your case.
Your Hannity, they'll throw the book at you.
Well, I think that's a fair point.
The New York Times and CNN, this would never happen to them.
And Project Geritas is a news organization, and the federal judge in this case, Judge Torres in New York, in November after the raid, five days after the raid, ordered the FBI to stop and to sign what's called a special master, which is very rare to get that appointed.
And the federal judge said, James O'Keefe, Project Geritas, are entitled to journalistic privilege.
So the judge exclaimed.
The judge made the right call here.
The judge was 100% right.
Keep going.
That's a good question.
Things take a crazy turn.
After that happened, the FBI, Department of Justice, Southern District of New York, went to Microsoft and got a gag order on Microsoft.
We use Microsoft for our emails, and a magistrate judge, that's a different judge, signed it.
They went behind that judge's back and they gagged Microsoft.
Microsoft filed a motion opposing this.
And the moment Microsoft put it on paper and sent it to the Southern District, the Southern District backed down.
This was 10 days ago.
We found out about this.
They didn't file the motion, but Microsoft tipped us off about it, and the gag order was lifted, Sean.
And now we found out they were trying to stop people from knowing they should be secret.
They're called sneak and peek warrants.
This is like CIA-level stuff they were doing to a journalism organization in the United States of America.
And the probable cause for the sneak and peek warrants going back to January 2020, well, guess what?
They weren't even on the warrants they raided my home with.
So this is a scandal.
This is probably, I said on your show on Wednesday, the biggest infringement of freedom of the press in the history of the United States.
So we have one minute left.
What is your recourse?
What is your next move?
We filed a motion with the judge, and we said we want to know the names of the people who did this.
We obviously want to know what companies, what other vendors they went to.
We found out Uber they did this to Uber.
Did they do this to Apple, Verizon?
I mean, we filed a motion.
We want relief, and we want to know the names of U.S. attorneys are out of control in New York.
And they're obviously trying to cover their tracks because they tried to gag people from speaking about it.
So we want relief.
And it seems like Microsoft did the right thing.
Am I wrong on that?
I think Microsoft actually did the right thing.
I actually think that they, I have to give them a lot of credit, Sean, because they tipped me off and they care about their clients as a vendor.
They don't want their clients being spied on.
And what if the government, the government had access to all of our emails, and then they leak it to the New York Times for a year?
Let me tell you, Special Master or not, they already made their copies.
I would bet my life on it.
Speculation, but I bet my life on it.
That's why this is such a grave case.
And we're carrying the rights of so many other people because if they could do it to me, they will do it to you.
And the ACLU thinks it's outrageous.
And the New York Times also thought it was outrageous this week.
All right.
Big news.
We'll continue to follow it.
James O'Keefe, founder, CEO of Project Veritas.
Unbelievable times we're living in.
Thanks for being with us.
What an incredible, what an incredible story that is.
Unreal.
Scary.
You know, freedom of the speech, freedom of the press.
Not anymore.
Looking for fake news?
You won't find it here.
You'll hear what everyone really thinks in D.C.
This is the Sean Hannity show.
All right, 25 to the top of the hour.
All right, as promised, we'll get a lot of calls in today.
Mike is in Alabama.
Mike, glad you called.
All right, War Eagle, Walt, Roll Tide, what is it?
It's Roll Tide.
You know what?
I'm telling you why there's more Roll Tide people, though, because you cannot find a better college football coach than Nick Sabin.
You just can't.
I agree, Dial.
I do live in a house divided.
My wife, bless her heart, she's an Auburn fan, but love her anyway.
I love her anyway, in spite of her football.
If you don't know Alabama football, there's Jesus on Sunday and there's Alabama, Auburn on Saturday.
That's it.
It's another religion.
That is exactly correct.
What's going on, Mike?
What's on your mind today?
Well, I'm a truck driver, and I'm infuriated with the price of our fuel.
I heard a ridiculous something on Fox News, I believe it was.
It was a survey.
It showed that 50% of people or 51% of people blame Biden for the rising energy costs, and the others, they blame Putin.
I want to know who those people are.
The polls I've seen, I'm not sure exactly which poll question you're referring to, but people know that it's Joe Biden's fault.
We were paying nearly $1.50 more a gallon on average around the country long before Putin invaded Ukraine.
Are they trying to use that as the reason for the record high gas prices and lie to us?
Yeah, of course they are.
They're doing the same thing with inflation.
We've had a 40-year record high of inflation for many months before Putin even amassed troops on the border of Ukraine.
Exactly.
Now, the fuel cost for us as drivers is a direct reflection of what the prices are at the grocery store or at the furniture store or whatever.
What would normally cost me, say, $300 to fill my truck up is now costing me $650.
Let me ask you, are you an owner?
Are you an owner-operator or do you work for a company?
Owner-operator.
Okay.
So you're paying twice what you are paying or about twice.
Is that right?
That is correct.
Okay.
Now, you work hard, I assume.
What kind of rig do you have?
I have a 2019 freight liner.
Okay.
So you're out there working hard every day.
And, you know, and by the way, when your truck goes down with the supply chain crisis, you got to scramble because it's hard to get parts right now.
I don't envy truckers and trucking companies at this moment, but you're paying twice as much now.
Truckers, good truckers can make good money, especially if they work hard, you hustle.
You're an owner operator.
I'm sure you're hustling every day.
But you're not going to make less money, nor should you make less money because you work so hard.
So who ends up paying the price of the doubling of your diesel prices?
Well, actually, the consumer does, but actually the freight rates are not reflected in the rising cost, not equally reflected into the rising cost of fuel.
So if you book a load that pays you $2,500 or $3,000 or whatever, that's exactly what it paid when fuel was, say, $2.50 a gallon.
See, but now I have friends in the trucking business, very close friends in the trucking business, and they tell me that the costs are covering it, at least for their company, with the deals that they do.
I don't know.
I guess there's some big national bulletin board where you can go to and pick the routes, and there's just not enough trucks out there.
And you can't get new trucks, as you probably already know.
And parts is hard to get.
So at least my friends are getting a premium for the loads that they have.
And they said they're even actually profiting more this year than last year.
That's not the case with you.
Well, no, I'm an owner-operator, but I do not run under my own authority.
Now, if you're running under your own authority, yes, you will see the difference there, but I'm under a contract.
Got it.
Now, the rates, I mean, we just got a little boost, but not really enough to cover it.
But every single thing, like I can stop at a truck stop, for example, to go in to get a shower.
Why would inflation and energy cost raise the price of a shower at a truck stop?
We're talking 18 bucks to take a shower.
You know, and it is every little thing is costing more money.
During the beginning of the pandemic, my wife started just to help out a little bit.
She started her own little small business, pretty much online only.
And she's done pretty good with it.
But since the rising cost, it's getting harder and harder for her to stay competitive.
And she is starting to see that.
I just hate to hear this.
I mean, look, this goes to the heart of what I was saying earlier when I talked about the economy.
And add to this now, on top of the rising food prices that we already have, now, quote, food shortages are coming to America.
You can't find a new truck.
I don't care if it's Frider, Freightliner, you know, Penske, whatever it is.
You can't find them.
Inflation now, Americans are facing.
Well, okay, so rent prices are up to record highs.
Gas prices are record highs.
A 40-year high of inflation, a food shortage now added to the already high cost of food.
Electric heating and cooling your home.
That's all costing more.
And by the way, these idiots, by the way, want to, now the Democrats, they want to raise gas taxes on gas companies.
And what do you think the gas companies are going to do?
I just had a good friend of mine from church, Sean, tell me, I mentioned to him that I can buy fuel cheaper in North Georgia now than I can in South Carolina, which is mind-boggling.
And he told me, well, Brian Kemp has suspended the state tax on fuel in Georgia, and I had no idea.
Well, there are people in Southern California, the average for a gallon of gasoline now, the average is well over six bucks a gallon.
They're actually going to Mexico, crossing the border, and they're filling up the tanks there and coming back.
I mean, and they're saving a fortune doing it.
Listen, thank you for what you do because everything we buy in every store we go to got there by a truck.
You make that possible.
I know it's tough work.
I think you need to go back to your vendor that you have a contract with, and you got to say, I'm getting killed here.
You guys got to raise rates.
That's my business mind working.
So that's what I would do.
But thank you for what you do every day.
All right.
One last thing, Sean.
I'll let you go.
I know you've talked a lot about going to Florida.
You need to go ahead and do it.
And if you're not willing to do it, I think Linda and everyone else in your organization need a raise until that happens.
You need to get to the point.
No, they can work from wherever they want.
Linda's not in New York.
Yeah.
Well, first of all, that's not the point.
I think the important part of his comment was the raise part.
We should focus on that.
That's right.
Okay, now we're going to have a little truth time.
Linda, do I or do I not?
Oh, come on.
Just have fun with it.
Don't get all trucky on me.
Do I or do I not take good care of the people that work for you?
Yeah, Sean, you take good care.
No, no, no.
Nobody's saying you just.
Yeah, Sean.
Because it was supposed to be funny.
Ha ha, Friday funny.
No, no, it's not funny to me because I take great care of my team.
Sweet baby James, do I not take great care of you?
You take great care of the whole thing.
Thank you.
Somebody's on my side for once.
We're going to have to mute Linda's mic for the rest of the day.
Oh, no, that could never happen.
Oh, yeah, it can happen.
I know people.
Listeners will revolt if that happens.
Yeah, that's probably not.
That's right.
Let's say hi to Clyde in Oklahoma.
What's up, Clyde?
How are you?
I'm good, Sean.
Technically, when I called in, she asked me where I was.
I was in Oklahoma.
I actually live in Texas.
I live in a small town just north of the DFW area.
So what's going on?
Hey, yesterday or the other day, I've heard a lot of talk about this.
And I just, on this whole Russia-Ukraine deal, I just disagree with us sending arms to support that war.
I think we're escalating it.
And I think as the world's supposed leaders, that we should be trying to broker peace and not ramp this thing up and ratchet this thing up to escalate this.
Clyde, you can't have peace talks with somebody that's unwilling to have peace talks.
You'll be sitting at the table till the cows come home.
Listen, I'll repeat this again.
So Ukraine is, listen, I have been a strong critic of Ukraine.
The corruption stinks to high heaven.
You can see in Joe Biden's leveraging a billion of our dollars to get a prosecutor fired, investigating a zero-experienced son.
So I'm not happy with Ukrainian corruption.
That's not the issue, though, here.
There are other means other, instead of indiscriminate bombing and leveling of Mariupol, an entire city, I mean, it's pretty much rubble now, thanks to Vladimir, seeing images of dead women and children, seeing apartment complexes just blown into smithereens, dead women and children in the street.
I just support the Reagan doctrine.
And the Reagan doctrine was exactly what we did when the former Soviet Union went into Afghanistan.
We provided the Mujahideen, they weren't perfect either, Stinger missiles, and they were able to defeat the Soviets.
We helped the Contra rebels in Nicaragua beat the Sandinistas in Daniel Ortega being supported by the former Soviet Union.
But not one American boot on the ground.
But remember, the Mujahideen ended up coming back, and that's who we ended up fighting in Afghanistan all these other years, too, their descendants.
Remember, it's sort of like during World War II, we made alliances that you never thought we'd have to make, but war brings about strange partnerships.
And if you remember, Soviet expansionism, remember when the Nazis, we ended up partnering with Russia in World War II, originally them with the Nazis.
But if you remember correctly, though, that Japan bombed us, and so we declared war on Japan.
We didn't declare war on Germany until Germany declared war on us because of the Axis relationship that they had with Japan.
And all I'm saying is that my...
Well, let me ask this question.
This for me now becomes a moral issue.
And when I played the Reagan doctrine, I played it on TV.
I played it here.
I won't play it again.
When I played him, that he talked about rights coming from God, freedom and liberty is God-given.
And that, you know, what role should America play in the world?
I agree with everybody that will say we cannot be the world's policemen.
But my conscience, my soul, my religious faith, I'm a Christian, aspiring Christian, because I'm the Christian that always needs forgiveness, it seems.
But anyway, it just, I cannot, in good conscience, do nothing when they're eviscerating innocent men, women, and children.
This isn't so much about the country Ukraine for me as much as it is about, you know, we've watched what's happened historically in Europe before.
I'd rather it end here, and I'd rather stand up to the person that's killing and responsible and has all the blood on his hands for killing those women and children.
does that not move you in any way to at least give them the weaponry so they can defend their country?
But see, everything you say...
No, no, no.
If...
You got to answer that question.
Do those images.
Okay.
Yes, it's horrible.
It's horrible.
It's horrible.
Does that not move you to at least want to provide them the weaponry?
I'm a missionary to Africa.
I see a lot of these horrible things that I see and I witness.
I do.
And again, this changed my philosophy in 2000.
My dad's a retired brigadier general for the military.
And so I understand all these things.
But if that's the case, then let's just quit messing around and let's go after them.
But see, we're not doing that.
I don't think we should.
There's a point at which if the Ukrainians show the courage, the valor that they've been showing and the willingness to fight for their own country, as they've been showing, Europe especially and the United States can give them the weaponry.
And if we provided it to them, missile defense systems, air defense systems, drones, javelins, let's see, Stinger missiles.
And I would let Poland give them all the MIGs they want.
I think they've shown they can defeat the Soviet Union.
They've stymied them.
They've held the Soviet Union back.
I'm sorry, Russia back.
And to me, it's been fairly miraculous their ability to fight with being so outmanned and so outgunned.
Well, can I ask you one question?
Yes, sir.
Last question.
Do you think had Ukraine not given up their nuclear weapons when they signed that agreement back in 1997 with Bill Clinton and Russia, that Russia would have done this?
The Budapest Agreement, that was the dumbest thing they ever did.
But see, that's what I'm saying.
People forget that that happened.
But wait a minute.
But if we're going to take it, if we're going to go talk about this agreement, remember that agreement ensured Ukraine that the United States, Great Britain, and Russia would provide for their safety concerns.
So much for keeping that agreement.
100%.
100%, Sean.
All right.
But listen, it's not.
I understand people that disagree, but look, the Fox News poll that came out, almost 70-some percent of people agree with me.
They didn't say the Reagan doctrine in the question, but that's what they were saying.
If the Ukrainians are willing to fight, provide them the weaponry, let's end Putin's territorial ambitions here because we don't know how far they go.
Anyway, good call.
I hope you have a great weekend.
I appreciate you checking in.
Thank you so much for joining us.
All right.
800-941-Sean, our number, you want to be a part of the program?
Quick break, right back.
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