# Project Veritas gets their homes searched
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [November 5, 2021, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859 "2021-11-05T21:41:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/22 "2021-11-06T18:32:52Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> O’Keefe recently tried to sway the New Jersey governor’s race. One of the claims that his supporters were saying is he and PV has never lost in court. Any truth to that?
Easy to not lose in court when they have the money to settle out of it.
> **[James O'Keefe agrees to pay $100,000 settlement to fired Acorn employee](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/08/james-o-keefe-settlement-acorn)**
>
> Activism against Acorn in hidden camera video led to a national controversy and ultimately the organisation's demise
---
### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/23 "2021-11-06T18:41:24Z")
So, what crime was alleged to have been committed that would justify the FBI searching the homes of members of a political organization? Was there a theft complaint from the diary owner? What exact crime are they accused of committing? I’m not seeing it.
If someone sends me a book in the mail and said, ‘you should look at this’, have I committed a crime? If the diary had been found in a gutter because the daughter dropped it, would it be a crime for me to give it to a journalist if I found it? If not, how can the FBI have the right to search my home?
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/24 "2021-11-06T18:59:27Z")
Presumably, the theft that they claimed to have committed.
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### Author:  [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/25 "2021-11-06T19:03:49Z")
Project Veritas basically only publishes complete lies. The idea that authentication was what stopped them is laughable.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/27 "2021-11-06T19:07:49Z")
> [@tofor](#):
>
> I don’t understand. Not publishing something because it can’t be authenticated seems like the ethical thing to do. How is that a problem?
If a document doesn’t meet Veritas’s rigorous standards of authentication, that can only mean one thing: it doesn’t exist at all.
(i.e. Veritas has demonstrated in the past that they have no standards whatsoever)
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### Author:  [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/28 "2021-11-06T19:18:30Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> This story is really confusing to me. Every news source I’m seeing is calling if Ashley Biden’s stolen diary. So is it the authentic stolen diary? Did someone make a fake? Are the things that have been published from the real diary? Why is the FBI investigating if there was no theft? If there was a real theft of a real diary it changes the story tremendously.
All of this, plus why is this diary of interest except insofar as it might have been stolen?
Anyway, a 40-year old woman who journals isn’t going to have one of those pink Barbie diaries with a key. She will have BOXES of spiral-bound notebooks that she has been journaling in for decades. Okay, she might have **one** Barbie diary–her first diary–that she got for her birthday when she was 10. Chances are the contents of that will not be newsworthy.
Does this mean nobody cares about Hunter Biden any more?
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/29 "2021-11-06T19:27:13Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> If someone sends me a book in the mail and said, ‘you should look at this’, have I committed a crime?
Someone claims they possess personal property that the owner says they didn’t and wouldn’t voluntarily give to anyone else. Ergo, it’s stolen. It is a crime to knowingly receive or possess stolen material. How did that happen? Was it done knowingly? These are legitimate subjects of a law enforcement investigation.
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> If the diary had been found in a gutter because the daughter dropped it, would it be a crime for me to give it to a journalist if I found it? If not, how can the FBI have the right to search my home?
I commend your heroic effort to muddy the waters, but in fact [there was a criminal complaint.](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/fbi-probes-project-veritas-over-ashley-bidens-stolen-diary.html)
> [@](#):
>
> Per the _Times_ sources, that same month, a Biden family representative reported to federal authorities that several personal items belonging to Ms. Biden had been stolen in a burglary, prompting the Justice Department, at that point still being led by Attorney General William Barr, to open an investigation.
Veritas possessed materials that were likely stolen in a burglary. Did they know it was stolen? Do they have information that could identify the burglars? All legitimate reasons to search the homes and businesses of people who had the stolen property.
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/30 "2021-11-06T19:38:01Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#):
>
> Someone claims they possess personal property that the owner says they didn’t and wouldn’t voluntarily give to anyone else. Ergo, it’s stolen.
Not necessarily. The owner could have thrown it out and it was fished out of a dump. It could have been simply lost. The owner could have moved and a new owner found the diary in the back of a closet shelf months later.
The point is that Project Veritas would have no reason to know the diary was stolen. especially since they were told it was not.
However, if the Biden family had filed a burglary report before they knew the diary was in PVs possession, I agree that might have justified the search. Is that the case? Or did they file that after they found out that the diary had surfaced?
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/31 "2021-11-06T19:51:06Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#):
>
> > [@Sam\_Stone](#):
> >
> > If someone sends me a book in the mail and said, ‘you should look at this’, have I committed a crime?
>
> Someone claims they possess personal property that the owner says they didn’t and wouldn’t voluntarily give to anyone else. Ergo, it’s stolen. It is a crime to knowingly receive or possess stolen material. How did that happen? Was it done knowingly? These are legitimate subjects of a law enforcement investigation.
>
> > [@Sam\_Stone](#):
> >
> > If the diary had been found in a gutter because the daughter dropped it, would it be a crime for me to give it to a journalist if I found it? If not, how can the FBI have the right to search my home?
>
> I commend your heroic effort to muddy the waters, but in fact [there was a criminal complaint.](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/fbi-probes-project-veritas-over-ashley-bidens-stolen-diary.html)
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > Per the _Times_ sources, that same month, a Biden family representative reported to federal authorities that several personal items belonging to Ms. Biden had been stolen in a burglary, prompting the Justice Department, at that point still being led by Attorney General William Barr, to open an investigation.
>
> Veritas possessed materials that were likely stolen in a burglary. Did they know it was stolen? Do they have information that could identify the burglars? All legitimate reasons to search the homes and businesses of people who had the stolen property.
There are a couple of problems with all that with the information that is out so far. The diary was supposedly presented to the lawyers of Ms Biden who refused to take possession of it and refused to authenticate.
Why is the FBI investigating a local crime? Burglary is not a federal crime when it’s not on federal property.
What is most confusing to me is that it seems by the official actions so far the diary is real. My initial reaction to anything to do with Project Veritas is it’s fake. But if they were given a fake diary by someone and published lies it wouldn’t be a crime it would be a tort. If the diary is real are the allegations in the diary real? Let them go to jail for being part of the theft if that’s the case but that doesn’t make the allegations less bad if it did come from his daughter.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/32 "2021-11-06T20:02:45Z")
It’s Project Veritas, so we can’t entirely rule out the possibility that they did something dumb like try to blackmail someone with the diary. Even a fake diary. There’s pretty much no combination of “stupid” and “unethical” I wouldn’t put past those guys.
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### Author:  [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/33 "2021-11-06T20:08:00Z")
What you’re missing is the fact that Project Veritas are members of The Bad Guys, so they deserve to have their homes searched.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/34 "2021-11-06T20:15:12Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> Not necessarily. The owner could have thrown it out and it was fished out of a dump. It could have been simply lost. The owner could have moved and a new owner found the diary in the back of a closet shelf months later.
>
> The point is that Project Veritas would have no reason to know the diary was stolen. especially since they were told it was not.
The purpose of the investigation is to gather facts and evidence to determine what happened. The FBI can’t just say “oh, you found the stolen stuff on a trash heap? Understandable, have a nice day”. They have to evaluate every single aspect of that story, which entails investigation, which entails a search.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/35 "2021-11-06T20:23:06Z")
The FBI can’t do anything if it’s not in their purview. They are not the national police. There has to be something further than burglary or receiving stolen property. Right now it’s not clear what they are trying to find.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/36 "2021-11-06T20:30:20Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> The point is that Project Veritas would have no reason to know the diary was stolen. especially since they were told it was not.
Per PV’s own claim, the diary was obtained when Ms. Biden left the room where it was in without it. That would be theft, and they say they know it.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/37 "2021-11-06T20:31:26Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> It’s Project Veritas, so we can’t entirely rule out the possibility that they did something dumb like try to blackmail someone with the diary. Even a fake diary. There’s pretty much no combination of “stupid” and “unethical” I wouldn’t put past those guys.
100% true. It could be that there was no real diary. It could be that it’s real and parts were embellished to be more salacious.
It doesn’t matter how it was obtained or if there were illegal shenanigans after it was obtained if the diary and its contents are real. It doesn’t matter if everyone from Project Veritas goes to jail. The contents that have so far been released would be very bad for the president and the country if it did come from his daughter.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/38 "2021-11-06T20:45:48Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> The FBI can’t do anything if it’s not in their purview. They are not the national police.
Would the FBI go this far out on a limb of a local crime, knowing it would get sawed out from under them on simple jurisdictional grounds? It would be nuts to think so.
That’s not to say I think we can draw any conclusions right now. Just that it’s sort of silly at this point to say “there’s no crime, FBI has no business here.”
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/39 "2021-11-06T20:47:24Z")
It doesn’t take much to find excepts of the purported diary on far right wing blogs. What I saw were scans of handwritten pages dating from 2019 that seem to have been released in October of 2020. They recount very inappropriate sexual behavior. They were supposedly released by someone who has worked closely with PV but not PV themselves. PV’s offices aren’t being searched, people’s homes are being searched.
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### Author:  [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/40 "2021-11-06T20:51:35Z")
Would the FBI have relieved local authorities of this case simply because we’re talking about the President’s daughter?
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/41 "2021-11-06T20:51:37Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#):
>
> > [@Loach](#):
> >
> > The FBI can’t do anything if it’s not in their purview. They are not the national police.
>
> Would the FBI go this far out on a limb of a local crime, knowing it would get sawed out from under them on simple jurisdictional grounds? It would be nuts to think so.
>
> That’s not to say I think we can draw any conclusions right now. Just that it’s sort of silly at this point to say “there’s no crime, FBI has no business here.”
It’s not that there are no crimes. The FBI does not investigate state crimes any more than local police investigate federal crimes. They are looking at something more but it’s not clear what just yet.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2021, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/project-veritas-gets-their-homes-searched/953859/42 "2021-11-06T20:53:05Z")
> [@bobot](#):
>
> Would the FBI have relieved local authorities of this case simply because we’re talking about the President’s daughter?
The investigation was started by AG Barr before the election when he was private citizen and former Vice President Biden.
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