James O'Keefe - Justice Dept. Issued Secret Subpoenas to Google, Microsoft, Apple, & Uber for Emails

September 16, 2023 in Johnston, Iowa GoEvents 101 held the 2023 Iowa Liberty Fest. Prominent speakers such as Steve Deace, Connor Boyack the author of the Tuttle Twins, and the founder of Project Veritas & O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) James O’Keefe spoke for the audience.

James O’Keefe from the O'Keefe Media Group spoke about his experience with Ashley Biden’s diary.

To follow O'Keefe Media Group visit:

https://okeefemediagroup.com/

James received the diary and wanted to corroborate it.

James said ”I went about the business of trying to corroborate it. Trying…As a journalist when someone sends you something, you always want to make sure that what it is, is true. Now if you’re recording something yourself, you know that what you’re recording happened, but if someone sends you a recording, you still have to try to verify it. That’s what separates journalism from propaganda. So we get this document, and we try to corroborate it. And in this document…Ashley who went through some sort of drug rehab, she was in a halfway house, was apparently abandoned…The document was abandoned in her halfway house, couple years ago in Delray, Florida. So, I hire a handwriting expert. Mmmkay…Let me see if I can match this up with Ashley. And then, I call...We call up Ashley Biden for comment. We even send an email to Joe Biden saying “Listen. We’re not sure if this is real or not…She’s making allegations…Is this…Is this true?”

This is 2020… A couple weeks before the presidential election between Trump and Biden…October 2020. We send the email to Joe Biden for comment or his lawyer or something like that, and Joe Biden’s lawyer…A Lawyer by the name of Roberta Kaplan….Sends our request for comment to the FBI. You might say “What the heck. Why would they do that?” Well first of all we know that she did that because she accidentally CC’d me on the email to the FBI. So that’s the first…What I’m about to tell you is so strange that you can’t make this stuff up. Next, and this is again October 2020 right before the presidential election. The Biden lawyer sends it to the FBI…U.S. Attorney’s office to be exact in the southern district of New York. Also known as the “Sovereign District of New York.” So they send this email, and then low and behold…I did not know this, but when that happened, they were trying to suggest that my request for comment – which is what a journalist is supposed to do, right what do you have to say for yourself – was tantamount to extortion – blackmail. They were suggesting that my asking for comment – we’re thinking of airing this story, we’d like your comment…Here’s your… Blackmail! It’s crazy! It was I – I think…So I did not know this, but when this happened…Again October 2020.

Now we’re in November 2020…The Justice Department…You’re Justice Department started issuing secret subpoenas to Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Uber into my emails. Those companies were forced to give up my emails. Microsoft was the email client for Project Veritas. And for months magistrate judges in New York stamped those documents. They stamped them. Magistrate judges I guess just stamp whatever they’re given to stamp, by the US Attorney’s Office. And if you think about just how egregious that is. I’m an investigative reporter who emails and communicates with sources everywhere, and the Justice Department, is getting into my device. I did not know they were getting into my device, for a year. From 2020 to 2021. Now fast forward this is happening. Noone knows it’s happening. Mmmkay…2704, 2705 secret subpoenas. And then…On October…No, November 5th, 2021…Out of nowhere…Sorry, November 3rd, the FBI shows up at my colleague’s house. Eric Cochran was his name. And pounds on his door…FBI open up…With guns and a search warrant, they raided the homes of two of my journalists….And you might say…what is the…What is the probable cause for this? Why? We don’t know…Because the affidavit is sealed. You can’t see the probable cause. We are…Some of the first journalists in American history to be raided by the FBI for asking questions about a document belonging to the president’s daughter. Now fast forward two days. Now fast forward two days…I get a knock on my door at 6 AM November 5th, 2021.

Raise your hand if you’ve been raided by the FBI. Nobody? Oh you’re going to be? Everyone should be raising their hand. Going to be…There’s a lot of things about to happen. So the way it works is…It’s 6 AM on the dot and you hear a really loud pounding (pounds)…Like the loudest…the loudest…It’s not a knock. It’s a (pounds again). The pounding is so loud and you’re startled awake. And I run to my door and it’s pitched black. 6:01 AM and I go to open the door, and then I think to myself…Are they gonna shoot me if I open my door? You know at first I…How do I know they’re the FBI? “Hi, FBI.” People impersonate all the time with me. But if you go to the peephole to look through the door, they’ve covered the peephole, so you can’t see who it is. So I think well they might shoot me, but I don’t want them to break my door down, because they’ve got a battering ram. So I open the door, and then they put me in handcuffs. When they put me in handcuffs, I think am I under arrest? Um, I guess it’s typical when you go through a search warrant to be put in handcuffs. I didn’t know that. And then they proceed to ransack my apartment. Now the first thing I think is I got to talk to my lawyer. Right? That’s what you would do. That’s what I would do, but how many of you have your lawyer’s phone number memorized in your head? So then the agent says…”Would you like…” someone raised their hand? Ok, you’re a lawyer, so you represent yourself. Ok, well that’s different. I have a lot of lawyers. Um you don’t have one, you might need one soon. So I…The FBI agent he…He says would you like to use your phone on your night stand? I say “Yes.” So he gives me my phone…My iPhone and he says “You can make the call from your bathroom, just leave the door a little bit open so we can see you.” So I go in my bathroom…It’s like five minutes after 6 AM on a Saturday…Nobody is awake anywhere. And I call and I open the phone, I unlock the phone…Right? FBI agent’s looking at me through the door crack, and I call up Paul and I get him on the phone, and it goes to voicemail twice…And the moment it goes to voicemail…Remember I unlocked my phone to make the call…The FBI agent steals the phone away from me, changes the settings to keep it unlocked permanently and puts my phone in an evidence bag. So it was all a ruse, so that they could get into my phone. You might say well, the feds can jailbreak an iPhone…We don’t know that. But the just were able to jailbreak my iPhone with my cooperation – unbeknownst to me. Now think of how horrible that is. Not…I’m a journalist! You know what’s on your phones? Doesn’t matter…By the way. I’ve never broken the law. I don’t break the law. I’ve never broke the law in my whole life…But that doesn’t matter…They shouldn’t be allowed to go through your phone to determine if you have…Now that’s not…That’s a violation of the fourth amendment – the first amendment and everything this country was founded upon. And I guess what I’m trying to tell you is…And you already know this…What’s happening in Washington…January 6th and other things, but now they’re pointing guns at journalists in this country. And not the journalists at the Washington Post. Those aren’t journalists. Those are state run media. I mean their pointing guns at innocent civilians for exercising their first amendment rights. So I’m sitting there in my apartment…I..I’m in a state of shock…That this is…I feel like I’m dreaming. This is not real. I…I…I have to wake up from this…crazy nightmare. And they show me a search warrant. And the search warrant says “Transportation of stolen documents across state lines.” Ok…You’re trying to suggest that a journalist should be raided by the FBI for transporting a document across state lines? Do you know what it’s called when investigative reporters transport stolen documents across state lines at the New York Times and the Washington Post? It’s called Tuesday…And Wednesday…And Thursday…Pentagon Papers…New York Times versus United States…Bartnicki v. Vopper. It is a right of someone to receive a document even if it was stolen by somebody else, and in this case it doesn’t appear to have been stolen at all. It appears to be abandoned. So the officer…This is an FBI…Little short guy. Little short FBI agent comes up to me and says “Please sign here…Please sign here. We’re taking your phones.” He didn’t really give me much choice in the matter. And then he said “Do you have any questions Mr. O’Keefe?” And I’m sitting there Indian style in handcuffs at 7 AM on a Saturday thinking “I have a lot of questions.” But I’m not gonna open my mouth and say anything. And then they leave.

And then I think like five minutes or something after they leave…Guess…By the way…I still have my iPad. They took my phones, but not my iPad. I don’t know why that is. So my iPad is still connected to my text messages. My iPad gets text messages, and guess who text messaged me five minutes later? The New York Times…And guess what the New York Times knows? Everything! They know the search warrant…They know that I was raided…They know the secret grand jury subpoena…They know everything. How does the New York Times know that? And then you begin to realize that the FBI and The New York Times are one. They’re the same thing. Of course, you already know this. But it’s another thing to read it in a book or see it on TV, read history, but actually live it. Ok, to live it. And then…When this happens. It’s particularly more terrifying when you’re innocent; because we’ve all…I mean we’ve all done things in our life that we’re ashamed of. Maybe not a crime parse, but maybe embarrassing things we’ve done. But when you’re an innocent person, who stands trial for something you did not do, it’s actually quite terrifying to think that…And I’m looking at the American flag…That…I’m 39 years old, I was fortunate enough to be brought up in the 1990’s, which I think was a pretty good time to grow up compared to today…And I remember pledging allegiance to the flag..And I remember believing in these principals. I still do… In the principals. But to see the federal government do that. And you begin to question your own perception of reality. And then the fear sets in…Right? We all…I consider myself a pretty fearless person, but it’s terrifying. And then your mind starts racing…Right? This is now like two hours after the raid. I start thinking to myself…Are they putting…Are they planting evidence in my underwear drawer? Are they putting things on my phone to set…Right? Half of you probably don’t think I’m crazy. If they’re gonna take a Viking battering ram to my door, then what other things are they willing to do? Not just to me, but to you? And then you start to become very afraid. And by the way, I’m not immune from it. And I’m human, just like you. And I don’t yet have a family…I hope to soon, but I’m a single man…Fortunately, I didn’t have children in there. And the feeling that overtakes you in hours after this is total fear. You know…what..Oh my God, I’m going to be indicted…They’re gonna make stuff up. And it paralyzes you…It paralyzes you…Um, but I’d like to say that fear is the problem in this country, but the antidote to fear is hustle. It’s more investigative journalism. It’s more citizens going out and exposing.

Something miraculous happened just days after this raid. Two years ago…Of course the left was ecstatic…Ha right? “Let’s guillotine James O’Keefe. We want to see him rot in a federal prison cell.” I mean that’s kind of ironic, because what I stand for…What we stand for is the first amendment itself. So this is happening on Twitter…Everyone’s ecstatic that James O’Keefe is going to prison for God knows what, but then something very unusual happens. Five days later on November…I want to say November 10th…A New York Times reporter by the name of Ben…Forgot his last name, but he’s a media reporter. In light of all the crescendo of negative angry tweets…Ben Smith…Ben Smith tweets out “We should not be cheerleading the raid against journalist James O’Keefe.” This is a New York Times journalist. He disagrees with all of you on many things, but he agrees with you on this. He agrees with you on this. Why? Maybe because he’s afraid they’re going to point guns at him under Trump or Desantis or something like that. And as soon as Ben Smith tweeted this, it was like the internet just exploded. Suddenly, Ed Snowden, the famous whistleblower tweeted in support of myself. The Committee to Protect Journalists, The Committee for Freedom of the Press like Wolf Blitzer is on the board of that deal tweeted in our defense. And it was like Ben had to do that, and then he gave permission to everyone else to follow. All those liberal people agreed with him, but were afraid to say so, until they saw someone else do it. In the beginning of a charge, the patriot is a brave, but scarce man, but when his cause succeeds, the timid follow and join for at that point it costs less to be a patriot. And then, a few days later, the American Civil Liberties Union…no friend of yours…announced they were going to defend me in this case involving the Ashley Biden diary. So the ACLU is defending myself and my colleagues in federal court. And that’s just one amazing story. It took a lot to keep going, but keep going we did."