A New York trial judge has illegally banned The New York Times from publishing its investigation of Project Veritas, a right-wing propaganda company dedicated to secretly infiltrating progressive organizations while operating under the guise of citizen journalism.
However, a New York State appeals court temporarily lifted the judicial order requiring The New York Times to turn over or destroy copies of legal memos prepared about Project Veritas. But The Times remains temporarily barred from publishing the Project Veritas documents.
The frightening case recalls a time 50 years ago in 1971 when the Nixon Justice Department tried to prevent The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers. They were a trove of classified documents written by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara that lied to Americans and Congress about the extent of US involvement in the Vietnam War.
Daniel Ellsberg, a Rand Corporation analyst who served two years as a State Department official in Vietnam, secretly photocopied the documents, believing the war was morally wrong. Ellsberg handed the documents to Times reporter Neil Sheehan. As a result, Nixon’s DOJ charged Ellsberg with espionage (later dropped).
Free Speech Versus Prior Restraint
That case, New York Times Co. v. the United States, 403 US 713 (1971), went to the US Supreme Court, which defended the First Amendment right of a free press against a prior restraint by the government. The Supreme Court’s three-paragraph lead opinion stated that “any system of prior restraints comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity” and “the Government thus carries a heavy burden of showing justification for the imposition of such a restraint.”
Fifty years later, on December 28, 2021, a New York State appeals court temporarily stayed a judicial order, requiring the Times to turn over or destroy copies of legal memos prepared against the right-wing donor-funded Project Veritas.
Project Veritas is an American far-right activist group founded in 2010. The group produces deceptively edited videos of its covert operations, which use secret recordings to discredit mainstream media organizations and progressive groups.
Project Veritas also uses entrapment to manufacture bad publicity for its targets and has spread disinformation and conspiracy theories in its videos. Targets of Project Veritas include Planned Parenthood, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), NPR, CNN, and The Washington Post.
Rep. Omar Falsely Accused of Voter Fraud
The stay issued by the New York appellate court partially reverses the initial order issued in December by Justice Charles D. Wood of the State Supreme Court (the trial-level court). The “Veritas” Trump puppets had filed a defamation lawsuit after asking the Times to retract two stories, see Project Veritas v. New York Times Company.
One was about a bogus video accusing Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) of voter fraud. Rep. Omar is the first Somali American to represent Minnesota. She is one of two Muslim women to serve in Congress. Omar has faced blistering criticism from our former Racist-in chief for her religious views. The 45th President is a Project Veritas member.
The other story was about Veritas publishing clickbait articles on Jeffrey Epstein, claiming liberals like Bill Clinton had been seen in his company.
The December 28 stay stops a previous order by Justice Charles D. Wood of State Supreme Court, ordering the Times to turn over its documents and destroy all electronic copies of information on Project Veritas.
New York Times publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, said that Justice Wood’s order “had no apparent precedent.”
He added, “This ruling should raise alarms not just for advocates of press freedoms but for anyone concerned about the dangers of government overreach into what the public can and cannot know.” The Times Editorial Board, on December 24, published the opinion: A Dangerous Court Order Against the New York Times.
Beginning with the unanimous decision in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), the Supreme Court has sided with newspapers. The court ruled that public officials cannot recover damages for libel without proving that a statement was made with “actual malice,” defined as: “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard for whether it was false or not.”
We hope the current US Supreme Court elects not to hear the Project Veritas case, which would worsen censorship of the press. The Founders not only mentioned freedom of speech in the Constitution; they noted it in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
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