Project Veritas founder O'Keefe says FBI raid on his home 'attack on First Amendment'

Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe says the FBI raid on his apartment is "an attack on the First Amendment by the Department of Justice." 

O’Keefe, founder of the undercover journalism operation Project Veritas, made the comment on the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” show on Monday, three days after FBI agents raided his New Jersey apartment in apparent connection to  a federal probe into the missing diary of President Biden's daughter, Ashley Biden. 

"I woke up to a pre-dawn raid," O'Keefe told show host Sean Hannity. "Banging on my door, I went to my door to answer the door and there were 10  FBI agents with a battering ram, white blinding lights, they turned me around, handcuffed me and threw me against the hallway. I was partially clothed in front of my neighbors. They confiscated my phone. They raided my apartment.”

O’Keefe also said his phone had reporters' notes from sources unrelated to the diary story and a lot of confidential information to donors to his group, known for its undercover videos.

"This is an attack on the First Amendment by the Department of Justice," he also said.

FBI agents spent over two hours searching his apartment and that FBI agents in fact took two of his iPhones.  

Paul Calli, O'Keefe's attorney, says Project Veritas paid money to tipsters who had obtained the diary for the "right to publish the material," which the group never did and later gave the material to "local law enforcement."

Calli also pushed back against the notion that the diary was "stolen." 

"The FBI did not respond to Fox News' request for comment. 

The raid into O'Keefe's home came just days after raids were conducted on two Project Veritas associates. 

The investigation is also being conducted by the Southern District of New York. Biden’s diary went missing just days before the 2020 presidential election.

O’Keefe said the tipsters approached his group late last year alleging to have Biden's diary containing "explosive allegations" about her father, then the Democratic presidential nominee, and that the diary was allegedly abandoned in a room that she had stayed at and that they stayed after, according to Fox News.