by Ben Whedon
Project Veritas, the investigative journalism group, was put on notice by the state of Connecticut with a records hold request and an indication of potential subpoenas coming their way as part of an investigation into discriminatory hiring practices at Greenwich Public Schools.
Veritas in late August published a secretly recorded interview with Cos Cob Elementary School Assistant Principal Jeremy Boland in which he appeared to admit to discriminatory hiring practices against Catholics and conservatives.
Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe announced on Monday that Connecticut Deputy Associate Attorney General Greg O’Connell had sent the records hold request after previously informing them that the state attorney general’s office had “opened a civil rights investigation into the possibility of discriminatory employment practices in the Greenwich Public Schools.”
“This letter is your notice to preserve all material potentially relevant to this investigation. You must take immediate action to prevent the deletion or spoliation of any such material,” O’Connell wrote. “We anticipate issuing subpoenas” the letter continues, as O’Keefe read it.
Project Veritas lawyers pointed out that the state office lacked the authority to issue subpoenas to the group, citing the “aptly named ‘Protection from Compelled Disclosure of Information Obtained by News Media’ law,” also referred to as the media “Shield law.” They added that such a request cannot occur even at the federal level without approval from Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“At the federal level, before a prosecutor or agent may attempt to speak or serve process on a journalist to obtain any materials or information from the journalist, permission must first be granted by the Attorney General of the United States,” they wrote, according to a Veritas press release.
“I wonder if they are investigating the principal or Project Veritas,” O’Keefe mused.
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Ben Whedon is a reporter at Just the News.
Photo “James O’Keefe” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
