Latest news with #ProjectVeritas
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Official Caught in Bombshell January 6 Tape Urging Cop Murder
NPR has obtained police bodycam footage of Trump Justice Department official Jared Wise calling on January 6 rioters to kill police officers. 'You guys are disgusting, man. You guys are disgusting,' Wise can be seen and heard saying on the footage. 'I'm former law enforcement, you're disgusting. You are the Nazi, you are the Gestapo, you can't see it, cuz you're chasing your pension.' 'Yeah! Fuck them, yeah! Kill 'em, yeah!' he later cheers as rioters push their way forward. Wise's incendiary statements, which he admitted to under oath in January, first made headlines in July after he was appointed senior counselor to Ed Martin, who was working to help January 6 rioters fight against 'improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions.' Wise defended his speech as a heat of the moment action influenced by what he saw as 'police brutality' on the part of the Capitol officers. 'Those are terrible things to say. Of course. I shouldn't say those things,' he said in court. 'I think I was careless and used, like, terrible words when I was angry.' Wise worked for the FBI from 2004 to 2017 before moving on to the far-right propaganda machine Project Veritas, where he infiltrated teachers' unions across the Midwest. Wise was charged with two felonies and four misdemeanor counts in 2023, including trespassing and disrupting the orderly conduct of government, for his actions on January 6. All of his charges (and the charges of hundreds of other rioters) were dropped by Trump. Wise's pardoning and senior appointment show that Trump truly sees no wrong in what happened on January 6, and he won't even pretend to. Rather than display any level of accountability, he rewards and uplifts those, like Wise, who called for violence against police and against the country in his name.
New York Times
25-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Project Veritas Withdraws Lawsuit Against The New York Times
The conservative group Project Veritas this week dropped its yearslong libel lawsuit against The New York Times. The lawsuit accused The Times of defamation for an article published in 2020 that reported that researchers from Stanford University and the University of Washington had described some videos produced by Project Veritas as probably part of a coordinated disinformation effort. The group also sued the researchers. Project Veritas lost its defamation claims against the university researchers in 2022, and was ordered to pay Stanford nearly $150,000 in legal fees. But the group had continued to pursue its claims against The Times after defeating the news organization's motion to dismiss. 'We are pleased that Project Veritas decided to withdraw its libel suit without any settlement,' Charlie Stadtlander, a Times spokesman, said in a statement, adding: 'The claim against The Times should never have been brought.' Lawyers for Project Veritas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Months after Project Veritas filed its lawsuit, The Times published an article about a federal investigation into Project Veritas for possible involvement in the reported theft of a diary belonging to Ashley Biden, the daughter of President Joe Biden. The article quoted memos written by some of the group's lawyers. Lawyers for Project Veritas accused The Times of intruding on attorney-client privilege and trying to embarrass an opponent in active litigation. A judge ordered The Times to stop publication of any Project Veritas documents, a decision that First Amendment advocates protested as an attack on press freedom. A New York State appeals court ruled in February 2022 that The Times was free to publish while it appealed the judge's order. With Project Veritas's decision to drop the libel suit, the group's accusations of intruding on attorney-client privilege were also dropped.
Boston Globe
01-07-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
An offhand remark about gold bars, secretly recorded, upended his life
'It was a boring date,' Efron, 29, recalled. 'He just wanted to talk about work.' Brady took a particular interest in the fate of billions of dollars that Congress had ordered the EPA to spend on tackling climate change. Trump had promised on the campaign trail to repeal climate programs, so the Biden administration was 'trying to get the money out as fast as possible,' Efron told his date. Advertisement Efron, a passionate believer in the EPA's mission 'to protect human health and the environment,' came up with an analogy to describe what was happening: The agency was a cruise ship that had hit an iceberg. It needed to launch its lifeboats — climate and clean energy projects — right away. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'It truly feels we're on the Titanic and we're throwing gold bars off the edge,' he told Brady. Brady left after about an hour, and Efron said he barely thought about the date again — until a video of him appeared on the website of Project Veritas, a right-wing group known for using covert recordings to embarrass political opponents. Brady, who had posed as a politically liberal commercial real estate agent and recent transplant to the capital, was actually a Project Veritas operative with a hidden camera. Advertisement The conversation — particularly the phrase 'gold bars' — has come to haunt Efron. Conservative media and Republicans immediately trumpeted those words as supposed evidence that the Biden administration had mishandled funds. Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, repeatedly cited the video as he worked to cancel $20 billion that the Biden administration had granted to finance projects like electric vehicle charging stations in low-income communities and installing geothermal systems to heat and cool subsidized housing. Zeldin has blasted out media releases with headlines like 'Administrator Zeldin Terminates Biden-Harris $20B 'Gold Bar' Grants' and 'EPA Formally Refers Financial Mismanagement of $20B 'Gold Bars' to Inspector General.' 'The entire scheme, in my opinion, is criminal,' Zeldin said on Fox News in February, adding, 'We found the gold bars. We want them back.' Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin at a meeting in the White House in Washington, on April 30. Zeldin posted the video of Efron to his official X account in February, just two weeks after he was confirmed to lead the EPA PETE MAROVICH/NYT It would not matter that a Justice Department investigation found no evidence of criminal conduct by Biden officials or grant recipients, and that a federal judge ruled that Zeldin's team failed to prove allegations of misconduct. The administration's own lawyers acknowledged internally that the claims are misguided. The unfortunate truth, for Efron, was that he had handed the EPA's critics a powerful political weapon, and he is still paying a personal price. Since the Project Veritas video aired — but especially since Zeldin posted it to his X account two days in a row in February, receiving almost 3 million views — he has been publicly shamed by Elon Musk, obscenely berated by anonymous callers and hauled into an interview with the FBI. All because of an online date. Advertisement On a recent Thursday, Efron described his ordeal over green tea at Three Fifty Bakery & Coffee Bar in Dupont Circle. It had been months since the video came out, yet he still seemed hurt and bewildered that he could have gotten into such a mess. 'I spend every day thinking about this,' he said, his voice shaking. 'I go to bed thinking about it. I wake up thinking about it.' He said that the excerpt Project Veritas posted made it seem as if he had some authority over the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, the program that funded the clean energy projects. But he had nothing to do with grant-making decisions. His job simply involved tracking EPA-funded projects to make sure they conformed to wage requirements and other labor laws. Efron also said he was expressing what everyone in Washington knew: that Trump intended to kill climate programs and the Biden administration was trying to save them. 'It's been used to justify actions that I view as terrible, in terms of trying to cancel grants and claw back funding, and I want to set the record straight,' Efron said. 'I want people to understand what I meant. I'd like Lee Zeldin to understand what I meant.' Gold Bars and Lifeboats Efron was feeling depressed about the presidential election when Brady swiped right on his Tinder profile, and he was looking forward to meeting someone who shared his politics. His profile didn't identify him as an EPA employee. But it did say that he worked on climate policy, lived in Washington and recently earned a master's degree from Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs. In retrospect, Efron said, anyone could have learned the nature of his midlevel federal job with a simple Google search. But when he matched with Brady, the idea that he could be targeted never crossed his mind. Advertisement Their conversation went from Tinder to text, and they agreed to meet for a drink at Licht Cafe on Nov. 20. Earlier that evening, Efron had been out at a happy hour with colleagues where they talked about how proud they were of EPA's record on addressing climate change and how they worried the Trump administration would reverse any gains. The Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters in Washington. MORIAH RATNER/NYT That was when Efron first thought of the Titanic analogy. He told his colleagues that the funding for clean energy projects going to states, cities, tribes and nonprofit groups were like gold bars being tossed into lifeboats to protect some of the Biden administration's work. 'What I meant was, we were giving money to protect rural Washington from wildfire smoke, and fund a health clinic in Georgia and a community farm in Missouri and help tribal communities that are falling into the ocean in Alaska,' he said. 'Those were lifeboats.' Efron had a drink, but Brady did not consume any alcohol. After discussing climate change, Brady asked some questions about Vice President Kamala Harris, but Efron didn't have much to say. Brady abruptly declared he had to leave. Two weeks later, at 3:07 p.m. on Dec. 2, an email landed in Efron's inbox. 'Project Veritas intends to release a video that contains comments made by you to a Project Veritas journalist,' it read. 'Below are some of those quotes. We appreciate any consideration for comment by 8 p.m.' He knew about Project Veritas. He felt panic, then humiliation. The EPA press office received an identical email and request for comment. Within minutes, Efron received a call from his boss. He realized he had been set up. Advertisement His boss at the EPA was mostly concerned for Efron but sent the video to the agency's ethics department for review. It cleared Efron of any wrongdoing or violations. 'Instead, this situation appears to be an unfortunate reminder about the social media bubble we live in now,' Justina Fugh, director of EPA's ethics office, wrote in an email to Efron. 'Remember that my team and I are here to provide you with ethics advice when you need it. Until then, hang in there, Brent.' He tried to hang in there. He called some close friends and then his parents in Massachusetts to tell them what happened and get their support. He strengthened the privacy settings on his social media. But Musk posted the video on X to his 221 million followers, and the onslaught came. Strangers found his cell number, though he still doesn't know how. Their voicemail messages, teeming with obscenities, called him 'scumbag' and 'American traitor.' 'We want our stolen tax dollars back, you disgusting criminal,' someone on Instagram messaged him. 'By the way, Trump is your president again.' A month later, Efron left the EPA in January, hoping the worst was behind him. An Interview With the Feds 'Huge news! Our awesome team @EPA just located BILLIONS of dollars worth of 'gold bars' that the Biden Admin threw 'off the titanic.'' The post on Advertisement 🚨🚨🚨Huge news! Our awesome team Big update coming tomorrow… — Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) That brought a fresh torrent of abuse, Efron said. By that point, he had loosened the privacy settings on his LinkedIn account to look for a new job. People found him there — some not even bothering to hide their identities. Most of the attackers took aim at Efron's sexual identity. 'Any hope you had of infiltrating the government with your tyrannical and sick LGBTQ agenda is now FINISHED,' one person wrote. 'Time to ramp up that rainbow résumé.' Then came the knocks on his door. Efron was still in bed the morning of Feb. 21 when two people from the EPA's office of the inspector general asked if they could come in to ask some questions. 'I asked them, do I have to answer them?' Efron recalled. They said he did not and left their business cards. He spent the rest of the day finding a lawyer. Mark Zaid, who specializes in representing people who work in national security and is suing the founder of Project Veritas in connection with a different undercover video, is representing Efron pro bono. On Feb. 24, Efron came back from a run to find more business cards in his door. This time, an FBI agent had written, 'please give me a call I would like to speak to you,' on the back. A few days later, at Zaid's office, Efron sat for questioning. Two FBI agents were in the room. So was a prosecutor with the U.S. attorney's office. Two investigators from the EPA's inspector general's office were on speakerphone. 'On the one hand, I had nothing to hide, and I just told them the truth, but it was really scary,' he said. 'I mean, this whole thing was stemming from me saying something that's been taken of context and twisted,' he said. 'I also was scared of the exact same thing happening again.' Feigning Amazement The Project Veritas video of Efron fits a pattern. During the Biden administration, the outfit released a string of surreptitiously recorded videos of young, mostly male federal workers, breezily complaining about dysfunction in their departments or about policies with which they disagreed. Most appear to be filmed in bars or restaurants. In many of the videos, a male voice can be heard behind the hidden camera, alternately gushing ('Amazing!' fawned Brady when Efron said he worked on climate change) or asking probing questions. 'Mr. Efron openly described his experience 'throwing gold bars off the Titanic' at Biden's EPA to our journalist in his own words,' Project Veritas said in a written statement. 'If he disagrees with Project Veritas' reporting, he should reflect on his own statements, as we published his words as the story.' Zeldin's office, meanwhile, continues to maintain that Efron's 'gold bars' comment was an admission of government wrongdoing. 'This video started a public discourse about very real issues with the way the Biden administration lit tens of billions of tax dollars on fire,' his spokesperson, Molly Vaseliou, said in a statement. The administrator continues to maintain his zero tolerance policy for waste and abuse." Seeking a New Start Efron's D.C. apartment lease expired recently, and he is staying with friends until he figures out his next steps. He still has not found work and thinks employers fear they could become a target of the Trump administration if they hire him. Zaid said Efron has few concrete ways to hold Project Veritas accountable for the disruption in his life. In Washington, D.C., it is legal for a person to record their own conversation with someone else without consent. Efron has tentatively returned to dating apps. But background searches are now a must, and he tends to stick to meeting people with whom he has friends in common. He said he regrets his choice of words in the Project Veritas video but will not apologize for sharing his personal political opinions during what he thought was a private moment. 'I have so much regret that my words have been twisted to be used to go after all these programs as a sort of justification,' he said. 'I regret that I was not careful enough in vetting who I was talking to, and shouldn't have been talking about work. But I also think that what I said was something I should have been allowed to say.' This article originally appeared in .
New York Times
01-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
An Offhand Remark About Gold Bars, Secretly Recorded, Upended His Life
They matched on Tinder shortly after the November presidential election, shared their mutual disappointment about Donald J. Trump's victory and agreed to meet for a drink. Sitting at a table at Licht Cafe, a bar on Washington's U Street corridor, Brent Efron and his date, Brady, talked a bit about home and hobbies. But Brady — or at least that's the name he used — repeatedly steered the conversation back to Mr. Efron's job at the Environmental Protection Agency. 'It was a boring date,' Mr. Efron, 29, recalled. 'He just wanted to talk about work.' Brady took a particular interest in the fate of billions of dollars that Congress had ordered the E.P.A. to spend on tackling climate change. Mr. Trump had promised on the campaign trail to repeal climate programs, so the Biden administration was 'trying to get the money out as fast as possible,' Mr. Efron told his date. Mr. Efron, a passionate believer in the E.P.A.'s mission 'to protect human health and the environment,' came up with an analogy to describe what was happening: The agency was a cruise ship that had hit an iceberg. It needed to launch its lifeboats — climate and clean energy projects — right away. 'It truly feels we're on the Titanic and we're throwing gold bars off the edge,' he told Brady. Brady left after about an hour and Mr. Efron said he barely thought about the date again. Until a video of him appeared on the website of Project Veritas, a right-wing group known for using covert recordings to embarrass political opponents. Brady, who had posed as a politically liberal commercial real estate agent and recent transplant to the capital, was actually a Project Veritas operative with a hidden camera. The conversation — particularly the phrase 'gold bars' — has come to haunt Mr. Efron. Conservative media and Republicans immediately trumpeted those words as supposed evidence that the Biden administration had mishandled funds. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Post
02-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Miranda Devine: Jill Biden's ‘work husband' Anthony Bernal may have played a key role in covering up Joe's cognitive decline
There are few doubts in the White House about Jill 'Lady Macbeth' Biden's role in covering up her husband's cognitive deficits as she urged him to run for re-election. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made that point crystal clear from the press room podium Thursday, saying the former first lady 'needs to answer' for 'lying to the American people' and 'shielding her husband away from the cameras.' For the normally circumspect Leavitt, it was a damning indictment. 'I think, frankly, the former first lady should certainly speak up about what she saw in regards to her husband and when she saw and what she knew,' she told reporters at a White House briefing. 'Anybody looking again at the videos and photo evidence of Joe Biden with your own eyes and a little bit of common sense can see this was a clear cover-up, and Jill Biden was certainly complicit in that coverup.' Some, like Leo Terrell, a senior counselor in the DOJ's civil rights office, went so far as to say Jill was guilty of 'elder abuse.' Of course, Joe Biden's delusional ambition is most at fault. He knew what he was doing when he ran for president in 2019 but needed teleprompters to recite a basic stump speech he used to know by heart. He knew what he was doing when he decided to run again in 2024, despite his health problems. 'Wizard of Oz-type' What is becoming clear is that the social-climbing former first lady and the aide she calls her 'work husband,' Arizona-born former child actor Anthony Bernal, played a bigger role in this con job than previously has been acknowledged. David Hogg, recently ousted as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, and Deterrian Jones, a former Biden White House staffer, point the finger at Bernal as the chief puppeteer in a new undercover video from Project Veritas released last week. Bernal had 'an enormous amount of power,' said Hogg. Jones described Jill's diminutive gay factotum as 'scary . . . like a Wizard of Oz-type figure. The general public wouldn't know what he looked like, but he wielded enormous power.' According to Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's new book, 'Original Sin,' Jill was one of the most powerful first ladies in history, and that gave her Rasputin-like senior adviser outsized influence among the 'Politburo' that controlled her husband. When Biden was hidden away during the 2020 campaign in his Delaware basement using the COVID pandemic as an excuse, Bernal was one of only two staffers allowed to move to Wilmington to tend to their daily needs. When Biden was holed up at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach last year, wrestling with the decision to abandon his campaign after his disastrous debate performance, Bernal was one of only four aides allowed by his side. Bernal, who boasted the title of 'special assistant to the president' and reportedly earned the maximum White House salary, began working for Jill during the 2008 presidential campaign when he was hired to help her transition into the role of second lady. While he was obsequious with the Bidens, he was loathed and feared by other White House staffers: 'He would not be welcome at my funeral,' a longtime Biden aide told the authors. Another said Bernal was 'the worst person they had ever met.' Bernal enforced a strict culture of loyalty, interrogating aides he felt didn't measure up, and using his power to cast out 'potential heretics.' 'Bullied colleagues' He worked with Jill to keep score of 'who was with them and against them,' chose her wardrobe, orchestrated her multiple Vogue covers, and planned glamorous overseas trips they could take together on Air Force One. This should come as no surprise to Post readers since White House correspondent Steven Nelson broke the story last March that Bernal 'bullied and verbally sexually harassed colleagues over more than a decade' but is considered 'untouchable' because Jill adores him. Bernal repeatedly speculated about 'the penis size of colleagues,' according to Nelson's sources. 'They talk a big game about integrity, decency, and kindness but when you work for the Bidens, you experience anything but that,' said one former staffer. The Bidens told us 'decency' was on the ballot. It was, but not in the way they meant. As Joe faded and disappeared from view toward the end of his presidency, Jill's rival court took charge as she commandeered Air Force One and a big Secret Service contingent for a frenetic round of solo campaigning, always accompanied by the indispensable Bernal. Her priority over then-candidate Donald Trump for Secret Service resources at a dinner she attended in Pittsburgh on the day of his rally in Butler, Pa., was blamed in part for Trump being inadequately protected when he was shot during an attempted assassination. Bernal was by Jill's side when she swanned into Hunter's gun trial in Wilmington last year to project presidential power to the jury, which nonetheless convicted her wayward 55-year-old stepson. He joined Jill on Air Force One when she jetted back to France for 24 hours at taxpayer expense to join her husband on an official visit for D-Day commemorations in the middle of the trial, before they returned together to the courtroom. If Jill is guilty of hiding the Bidens' many secrets, she had a willing accomplice in Bernal. We may learn more about his role in coming weeks as House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) probes the cover-up of Joe's cognitive decline and whether the president was fit to authorize the use of an autopen for his signature on executive orders and pardons. 'Historic scandal' Comer sent letters about what he calls the 'historic scandal,' demanding transcribed interviews from Bernal and four other former Biden aides, including Dr. Kevin O'Connor, Neera Tanden, Annie Tomasini, and Ashley Williams, all of whom have hired lawyers, he told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. O'Connor's interview is set for the end of June. Comer also is considering subpoenas for Jill and Hunter. 'These executive orders were many meant to Trump proof this White House,' Comer told Bartiromo. 'If we can find information that would lead us to believe that Joe Biden had no knowledge of those executive orders being signed in his name, then I think that the Trump administration could get them thrown out in court, and then Trump would be able to execute his agenda a whole lot easier without all the Trump-proofing that happened with the auto pen at the end of the Biden administration.' The American people do deserve to know who was running the White House the last four years. But it may not be so easy to prove that Joe was out of it. The former president showed he still has fight in him last week when he showed up at a veterans' memorial event in Delaware and snarked at questions from reporters about his cognitive and physical health: 'You can see that I'm mentally incompetent and I can't walk,' he said, sarcastically.
