Project Veritas has a powerful supporter in former President Donald Trump, who congratulated the outlet after it scored a victory in court over the New York Times.
In a video posted by Project Veritas Founder James O’Keefe, Trump hailed the court declining the New York Time’s request to have the lawsuit thrown out before directing followers to support O’Keefe’s legal fund.
From Fox News:
“I want to congratulate Project Veritas on their big win on the New York Times,” Trump said. “Now the suit will continue and whatever you can do for their legal defense fund, we’re with them all the way. They do incredible work, they find things nobody would even believe possible. So James, congratulations.”
“Thank you, thank you very much,” O’Keefe responded.
The Times attempted to argue to New York Supreme Court Justice Charles Wood to throw out the lawsuit after the paper claimed Project Veritas’ coverage of election fraud was “deceptive,” “false,” and contained “no verifiable evidence.”
But Wood disagreed with the paper’s argument, allowing the defamation lawsuit to proceed:
“The facts submitted by Veritas could indicate more than standard, garden variety media bias and support a plausible inference of actual malice,” Supreme Court Justice Charles Wood wrote in his ruling last week. “There is a substantial basis in law to proceed to permit the plaintiff to conduct discovery and to then attempt to meet its higher standard of proving liability through clear and convincing evidence of actual malice.”
Wood elaborated, “If a writer interjects an opinion in a news article (and will seek to claim legal protections as opinion) it stands to reason that the writer should have an obligation to alert the reader, including a court that may need to determine whether it is factor opinion, that it is opinion.”
A Project Veritas spokesperson added that O’Keefe was thrilled to have the former president’s support:
Project Veritas Media Relations Manager Mario Balaban told Fox News that O’Keefe was “very pleased” to have met Trump and “even more pleased” when the former president plugged the group’s legal defense fund “so that more lawsuits can be filed in the future against dishonest media outlets.”
“They’re now being forced to tell the truth under oath,” Balaban said.
The story comes shortly after Trump’s similar lawsuit accusing the Times of defamation was dismissed by a New York court, with the court claiming that the opinion piece at the center of the controversy was constitutionally protected speech.
But the Project Veritas lawsuit against the paper centers around a news report, with Project Veritas claiming the reporters of the story inserted matters of opinion into it in an attempt to damage the reputation of their organization.
Project Veritas’ most recent expose provided the first images of what’s going on in Biden’s “migrant facilities” at the border – and is a must watch.
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