Rejecting a claim from the ghost of Project Veritas that its actions were covered under the First Amendment protection for journalists, a judge said investigating federal officers will get back nearly 1,000 documents regarding the theft and distribution of a diary that belonged to the daughter of President Joe Biden seized from the group in an FBI raid in November 2021, the Associated Press reports.

Project Veritas paid $20,000 each to Florida People and convicted criminals Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander to deliver the book, Ashley Biden’s tax information and other items stolen from the Florida home to O’Keefe’s offices in New York.  The pair later pleaded guilty to various charges regarding the theft and transportation of the stolen items across state lines. The order means federal investigators will get more than 900 documents from Project Veritas about the theft, acquisition and distribution of the diary for possible charges regarding the theft of the items and their transportation to New York.

Background:  Ashley Biden left her diary along with a number of other possessions at a house where she lived in Florida.  A friend of her former roommate stole the diary and sold it to Project Veritas, which reportedly passed it among various Republican donors in the hopes of selling it on to a bigger anti-Biden PAC.  Unfortunately for them, there were no takers, and because of the source of the information–James O’Keefe–and so many people had opportunities to add things to the book, no one gives any credibility to anything claiming to come from the diary.  The FBI seized computers, phones and other devices in the 2021 raid, but did not access them until the court cases played out.