Judge Orders New York Times to Return James O’Keefe’s Legal Memos

A New York judge ordered the New York Times Friday to return and destroy all copies it possessed of legal memoranda prepared for James O’Keefe’s investigative journalism company, Project Veritas, saying it had violated his rights.

The memos were described extensively by the Times in a November article about how O’Keefe’s lawyers advised the company to stay within the boundaries of the law in conducting their work. The publication was unusual, both because it came after the FBI had conducted a bizarre raid on O’Keefe’s home looking for information about Ashley Biden’s diary, and because the Times is currently involved in defending against a defamation lawsuit by O’Keefe brought in New York.

The Times had originally published the memos in full on its website, before removing the link but retaining the article.

As Breitbart News reported at the time, the legal memos could be protected by attorney-client privilege. And Judge Charles D. Wood of the Supreme Court of Westchester County ruled on Christmas Eve that they were, and that the First Amendment rights of the Times to publish information did not mean that it could violate O’Keefe’s right to private communications with his attorney, a right that predates the Constitution and that could only be breached for “strong public policy considerations.”