00:00:24.000If you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, sort of high school or college chapter today, Turning Point USA is focused on the education of your children to pass down values to the next generation.
00:00:59.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:02:39.000I heard, I heard it sort of, you know, a very heavy pounding knock.
00:02:43.000And 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.
00:02:52.000And the first thought that occurred to me was, how long have they been pounding on my door before they break it down?
00:02:59.000Because they give you a courtesy knock and then they're going to use the battering ram.
00:03:02.000So I sort of ran through the apartment to my front door.
00:03:08.000And 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?
00:05:16.000As 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.
00:05:24.000So it was basically, I guess, a ruse in order for them to have access to my phone.
00:05:29.000And then they put it in the evidence bag and left the evidence bag open.
00:05:32.000So it's conceivable that if you wouldn't have made that call, they might not have access to your phone.
00:05:36.000It's conceivable because they can't, they have to get the password or, you know, they have to know that password.
00:05:41.000And this is what, this is so unconscious.
00:06:16.000Well, unfortunately, we speak in the language of ideology pertaining to our judges, and that's not really how this country is supposed to be.
00:06:27.000President 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.
00:06:37.000And then recently, the judge ordered what's called a special master, which is highly unusual.
00:06:43.000And the judge cited, quote, journalistic privilege.
00:06:46.000So this is an extraordinary, I mean, unbelievable, unprecedented thing in American history.
00:06:51.000It'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.
00:07:07.000And in this case, I didn't even publish it.
00:07:10.000What more could I have done as a responsible, ethical person and journalist?
00:07:16.000But didn't you try to turn it to law enforcement, too?
00:07:18.000We eventually gave it to Delray police because we didn't know who it belonged to.
00:07:22.000So we handed it into Florida local police, and we reached out to the Biden campaign for comment.
00:07:28.000We said, well, maybe there's an off chance Joe Biden will have something to say about this.
00:08:21.000The ACLU defended Project Veritas this month.
00:08:25.000The reporters committee, like Wolf Blitzer is on that committee, defended Project Veritas.
00:08:31.000Trevor 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.
00:08:47.000So the reporters committee sent a legal motion to the prosecutors and said, this is nuts.
00:11:10.000This was all about the circumstances by which the diary was apparently left at this apartment in Florida.
00:11:16.000Well, 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.
00:11:24.000And we don't know what's in the affidavit, but this happens.
00:11:27.000And they come into my home and finally they show me this search warrant.
00:11:31.000And the warrant lists a series of possible crimes that either I may have committed or I know somebody else has committed.
00:12:13.000And 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.
00:12:21.000Do you know what it's called, Charlie?
00:12:23.000When the Washington Post or the New York Times publishes a document that someone else illegally obtained?
00:12:52.000Because 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.
00:13:06.000So now do you see how fundamental this fight is?
00:13:10.000Yeah, I mean, that's like saying the New York Times didn't get Trump's consent before publication.
00:14:52.000The Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, put out a memo in July explicitly prohibiting these search warrants against the press.
00:15:00.000The 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.
00:17:13.000We issued a statement on that Friday around 1 o'clock, but the signature of the magistrate judge was 11:18 a.m.
00:17:19.000So my statement had nothing to do with them getting the permission to execute the search warrant.
00:17:24.000They had gone to Spencer Mead's home and Eric Cochran's home, took their stuff, didn't find anything because there's nothing incriminating.
00:17:33.000And then they got the permission to go after me, the CEO of the company.
00:17:38.000But we know what this is really about.
00:17:40.000They want to try to disrupt the choke point of the most effective exposure project against the vaccine industry, the open borders, voter fraud.
00:17:52.000Like it kind of all, there's only one organization exposing this stuff, right?
00:18:21.000Well, I'm a little bit more hopeful than I'm cynical, as you could believe.
00:18:26.000I 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.
00:18:39.000There still is a very thin line that I'm trying to expand because I think what unites us can be very powerful.
00:18:47.000Did you ever game out that the federal government might come for your phone one day?
00:18:52.000You know, there was always this, we talk about manifesting fear.
00:18:56.000I 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.
00:20:04.000Now, maybe his neighbors could have tipped off the New York Times, but how would he know the subjects of a grand jury subpoena?
00:20:10.000So 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.
00:20:57.000And the New York Times called it deceptive and disinformation and misinformation.
00:21:01.000And 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.
00:21:11.000I have nothing to hide in a deposition.
00:22:13.000A 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.
00:22:30.000So this is happening, and this is all happening.
00:23:05.000In 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.
00:23:12.000And the judge says, you're both media companies.
00:23:40.000It'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.
00:23:55.000And the issue before Your Honor is whether I'm a journalist.
00:23:57.000And if I lose that, it'll go to the United States Supreme Court.
00:24:00.000And if I lose on the issue of whether I'm a journalist, game over.
00:24:06.000But so you don't know how they got the memos.
00:24:10.000Well, 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.
00:25:29.000They 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.
00:25:42.000And then they try to interpret this as, quote, leverage.
00:25:46.000So Mike Schmidt says, in an attempt to leverage.
00:25:48.000But Mike Schmidt of the New York Times edited out the other part of the email.
00:26:18.000And one more thing, and then I'll stop.
00:26:20.000The 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.
00:27:18.000And there's something to be said for getting out.
00:27:20.000But I just want to give you both sides.
00:27:22.000I'm not a person who runs away from the fight.
00:27:26.000I'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.
00:27:36.000And maybe I'm a person who'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
00:27:39.000And maybe I'm a person who I'm fighting these battles with the New York State Supreme Court, special masters in the Southern District.
00:27:45.000I'm fighting in places where I'm fighting for principles in those places, and I think it's my imperative to do so.
00:28:11.000And 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.
00:29:24.000No, 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.
00:29:36.000So he's suing me somehow, which reasons we don't know.
00:30:18.000And so I suppose the most obvious question is they published, ProPublica published illegally leaked tax returns of the wealthiest people on the planet.
00:30:27.000As 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.
00:30:36.000As unconscionable as it might be to you and I, they have a right to do that.
00:30:40.000No, I mean, I'm not fighting that, but the same, is there not an equal protection?
00:30:45.000That is precisely the issue at hand, is equal protection under the law.
00:30:50.000Whether there's equality before the law.
00:30:52.000And of course, this whole thing is falling apart.
00:30:55.000The issue before the court, and there's a subpoena here that the FBI has issued, you know, subpoena for documents and whatnot.
00:31:11.000And 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.
00:31:21.000And 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.
00:31:34.000And 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.
00:31:42.000And of course, to your point, those organizations are doing the bidding of big pharma.
00:31:47.000Do you know the CEO of Pfizer said days before the raid that he's working with the FBI on misinformation?
00:32:43.000And the facts are that the CEO of Pfizer Pharmaceutical and the journalism establishment and the Department of Justice are all working together.