The order was to remain in place until a hearing next week. The Times planned to immediately oppose it in an appellate court.
Business & Economy: Latest Updates
- Cryptocurrency group loses bid for copy of U.S. Constitution.
- The company that produced ‘Parasite’ is in talks to buy Endeavor’s scripted content arm.
- Critic of Teamsters leader claims victory in race to succeed him.
“This ruling is unconstitutional and sets a dangerous precedent,” Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, wrote in a statement on Thursday.
“When a court silences journalism, it fails its citizens and undermines their right to know,” Mr. Baquet wrote. “The Supreme Court made that clear in the Pentagon Papers case, a landmark ruling against prior restraint blocking the publication of newsworthy journalism. That principle clearly applies here. We are seeking an immediate review of this decision.”
This month, federal agents conducted court-ordered searches at locations in New York City and in Westchester County associated with members of Project Veritas, including the home of Mr. O’Keefe, as part of an investigation into how the diary said to belong to Mr. Biden’s daughter surfaced publicly in the days before the 2020 election.
Lawyers for Project Veritas said that the group had received the diary from two unidentified people, and that the group believed the diary had been legally obtained. A warrant used in the search of Mr. O’Keefe’s home indicated that federal authorities believed the property was stolen.
Project Veritas has sought to portray itself as a journalistic organization protected by First Amendment rights afforded to the news media. The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the Justice Department for “invasive searches and seizures” of properties affiliated with the group, though the A.C.L.U. added that “reasonable observers might not consider their activities to be journalism at all.”
Mr. O’Keefe, in his own statement on Thursday, suggested that The Times’s coverage of the Justice Department searches had been biased. “The paper needs to decide if it is in favor of press freedom for all, or only itself, because it can’t have it both ways,” Mr. O’Keefe wrote.