A federal jury ordered Project Veritas to pay $120,000 in damages to a Democracy Partners member after a project investigator with a fake identity helped expose internal firm activities, Reuters reported Friday.
Former Project Veritas investigator Allison Maass allegedly secured an internship at Democracy Partners with a false name and background, taping activities during her tenure with the firm’s knowledge, the outlet reported. The firm and co-founder Robert Creamer accused Project Veritas of using “heavily edited” footage in videos falsely suggesting they worked to incite violence at 2016 Trump rallies and plotted voter fraud promotion, costing plaintiffs contracts worth more than $500,000.
Democracy Partners reportedly worked for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign through the Democratic National Committee, according to The New York Times. Maass pretended to be the niece of Charles Roth, a Project Veritas operative posing as a rich donor.
The jury said Project Veritas was liable for breaking wiretapping laws and misrepresenting itself, Reuters reported. Overseeing U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman will still assess damages over a distinct jury finding that Maass intended to violate a fiduciary relationship, the verdict form indicates.
“Hopefully, the decision today will help to discourage Mr. O’Keefe and others from conducting these kind of political spy operations and publishing selectively edited, misleading videos in the future,” Creamer said following the verdict, The NYT reported.
Project Veritas declared it would file an appeal.
“The jury effectively ruled investigative journalists owe a fiduciary duty to the subjects they are investigating and that investigative journalists may not deceive the subjects they are investigating,” Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe argued. “Journalism is on trial, and Project Veritas will continue to fight for every journalist’s right to news gather, investigate, and expose wrongdoing – regardless of how powerful the investigated party may be. Project Veritas will not be intimidated.”
Who actually gets to determine what gets edited out of video footage? You can’t show 100 hours of boring stuff that has no relation to the topic being investigated, so literally anyone could sue and claim that the video was highly edited and misleading and the public will never really be able to assess that claim. No one has 100 hours to waste looking at boring surveillance video to get to the ten minutes of good stuff. Law enforcement uses the same sort of editing process. You don’t show the jury the whole eight hour shift, only the five minutes the perp is waving a gun about robbing the place.
I wonder what Democrat appointed that Judge ?
It is called investigative journalism. What is wrong with that jury? This country is clearly upside down. They are letting DemonRAT commit fraud on the American people. Hopefully PV will win on appeal. Unfortunately, there are two justice systems in this country. Those elitist DemonRATS who are above the law. Then there are the rest of us.