Judge extends New York Times ban on Project Veritas coverage By

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (Reuters) – A New York trial judge on Tuesday extended a ban keeping the New York Times from publishing some materials concerning the conservative activist group Project Veritas, a ban that the newspaper said violated decades of First Amendment protections.

Justice Charles Wood of the Westchester County Supreme Court said the temporary ban will run at least until Dec. 1, when Project Veritas must respond in writing to the Times’ bid to end it.

Wood had imposed the temporary ban on Nov. 18, and extended it after a 1-3/4-hour hearing in his White Plains courtroom.

The hearing was part of Project Veritas’ defamation lawsuit against the Times over a September 2020 article describing a video the group released alleging voter fraud in Minnesota.

On Nov. 11 of this year, the Times published a story based on memos from a Project Veritas lawyer, which it said revealed how the group could “gauge how far its deceptive reporting practices can go before running afoul of federal laws.”

Project Veritas, led by James O’Keefe, has used what critics view as deceptive tactics in its efforts to expose what it describes as liberal media bias.

In court papers, the group connected the two articles, saying the Nov. 11 article contained material that was protected through attorney-client privilege in the defamation lawsuit.

Wood said when the hearing began that the case involved a clash between two “bedrock principles” of law: “freedom of the speech and freedom of the press, and attorney-client privilege.”