James O’Keefe’s undercover journalist group Project Veritas filed suit Monday against CNN for defamation.
Following Twitter’s permanent suspension of the Project Veritas Twitter account for allegedly sharing “private information” without consent, CNN anchor Ana Cabrera falsely said the ban was part of a crackdown on “misinformation.”
“Cabrera had knowledge of Twitter’s original reasoning for banning Veritas before she went on air and acted with malice when she said the de-platforming was part of a crackdown on those ‘promoting misinformation,'” Project Veritas contended Monday.
The group noted that Cabrera, days earlier, “had tweeted that the ban was in fact for an alleged violation of Twitter’s privacy policies – not for misinformation as Cabrera stated.”
In February, CNN Business reported that Twitter banned Project Veritas for alleged “repeated violations of the platform’s policies prohibiting sharing — or threats of sharing — other people’s private information without consent.”
According to O’Keefe, Twitter highlighted the apparently rule-violating post from Project Veritas as a video showing the Facebook Vice President of Integrity Guy Rosen being questioned outside his home.
“The tweet in question arose when asking for comment from Facebook’s VP of Integrity about censorship,” Project Veritas said from their Telegram channel. “Project Veritas is appealing this decision, as no privacy was violated.”
Big Tech’s targeting of Project Veritas has only continued. O’Keefe’s personal Twitter account was banned earlier this month, the same week the organization released more damaging footage to CNN.
“Twitter claimed without evidence that O’Keefe was ‘violating the Twitter Rules on platform manipulation and spam,'” The Daily Wire reported.
“As outlined in our policy on platform manipulation and spam, ‘You can’t mislead others on Twitter by operating fake accounts,’ and ‘you can’t artificially amplify or disrupt conversations through the use of multiple accounts,’” the Big Tech company said.
In response, O’Keefe announced his intention to sue Twitter, and the suit was filed last week.
“I am suing Twitter for defamation because they said, I, James O’Keefe, ‘operated fake accounts.’ This is false, this is defamatory, and they will pay,” he said at the time. “Section 230 may have protected them before, but it will not protect them from me. The complaint will be filed Monday.”
Project Veritas is suing The New York Times for defamation, too. The Daily Wire reported in March on the group’s progress:
Project Veritas scored a major win last week in the New York Supreme Court concerning the group’s defamation lawsuit against the newspaper.
The decision said the James O’Keefe-founded Project Veritas has sufficient evidence that the Times might have been motivated by “actual malice” and acted with “reckless disregard” in serval posts hitting the group’s work.
“This ruling means Project Veritas will now be able to put New York Times reporter Maggie Astor and New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet under oath where they will be forced to answer our questions,” O’Keefe said at the time, adding, “Project Veritas will record these depositions and expose them for the world to see.”
Related: Project Veritas Scores Major Legal Win Against New York Times, O’Keefe Responds