U of M law professor defends O’Keefe after FBI raid over Ashley Biden diary

The raid came after the DOJ opened a federal investigation into the alleged theft of the diary of Ashley Biden, daughter of President Joe Biden.

James O'Keefe speaks at the 2018 Turning Point USA Student Action Summit. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

Jane Kirtley, professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, is defending Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe after he was subjected to an early morning FBI raid.

Politico reported on criticism of the raid by free speech advocates as a politicized weaponization of the federal government against O’Keefe and others associated with Project Veritas.

The report quoted Kirtley, someone who admits to not being a “big fan” of Project Veritas, denouncing the FBI raid on O’Keefe’s home two Saturdays ago.

“This is just beyond belief … This is just over the top,” she said. “I hope they get a serious reprimand from the court because I think this is just wrong.”

Kirtley, once the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, added that Project Veritas deserves the legal protections afforded to all journalists, even if others, the Justice Department included, take umbrage with their underlying politics and journalistic tactics.

“It’s very dangerous to try to categorize people doing journalistic-type work, even if they’re not doing it the way I would do it or the way the mainstream media would do it or the way ethical journalists would do it,” she told Politico.

Acting on a court order, FBI agents seized O’Keefe’s cellphones at 6 a.m. on Nov. 6. The raid came after the DOJ opened a federal investigation into the alleged theft of the diary of Ashley Biden, daughter of President Joe Biden.

Project Veritas has insisted that the diary was legally obtained by two individuals who then passed it on to the conservative journalists.

Although Project Veritas obtained the diary last year, the group did not report on its contents. But investigative outlet National File did — just days before the 2020 presidential election.

Entries in Ashley Biden’s diary, verified as authentic, reveal that the author shared “probably not appropriate” showers as a young girl with her father, the current president, which may have irrevocably broken her “relationship with sex,” as National File put it.

One entry appears to accuse her father Joe of emotional manipulation during his presidential campaign, while another reveals that Ashley’s resentment of her father may be rooted in his wealth and “control.”

As many other diary entries recount, Ashley has long struggled with marital problems, affairs, and drug abuse, much like her brother Hunter.

 

Evan Stambaugh

Evan Stambaugh is a freelance writer who had previously been a sports blogger. He has a BA in theology and an MA in philosophy.