FILE - A motion for The New York Times hangs supra the entranceway to its gathering May 6, 2021, successful New York. A New York justice has upheld an bid preventing the Times from publishing documents betwixt blimpish radical Project Veritas and its lawyer and ruled that the paper indispensable instantly relinquish confidential ineligible memos it obtained. The determination Thursday, Dec. 23, by State Supreme Court Justice Charles D. Wood successful Westchester County, released Friday, comes successful a defamation suit Project Veritas filed against the Times successful 2020. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) (Mark Lennihan, Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

NEW YORK – A New York justice has upheld an bid preventing The New York Times from publishing documents betwixt blimpish radical Project Veritas and its lawyer and ruled that the paper indispensable instantly relinquish confidential ineligible memos it obtained.

The determination Thursday by State Supreme Court Justice Charles D. Wood successful Westchester County, released Friday, comes successful a defamation suit Project Veritas filed against the Times successful 2020.

Months aft the suit was filed, the paper reported that the U.S. Justice Department was investigating Project Veritas successful transportation with the theft of a diary belonging to Ashley Biden, the president's daughter. In that story, the Times quoted the memos, starring Project Veritas to impeach the paper of violating attorney-client privilege.

Wood upheld his earlier bid preventing the Times from further publishing the memos, and besides ruled that the paper indispensable crook implicit carnal copies of the documents and destruct physics versions.

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The paper reported it would entreaty the ruling and question a enactment successful the meantime. Publisher A.G. Sulzberger decried the ruling arsenic an onslaught of property freedoms and alarming for “anyone acrophobic astir the dangers of authorities overreach into what the nationalist tin and cannot know.” He besides said it risked exposing sources.

“In defiance of instrumentality settled successful the Pentagon Papers case, this justice has barred The Times from publishing accusation astir a salient and influential enactment that was obtained legally successful the mean people of reporting,” Sulzberger said successful a connection reported by the Times that besides asserted determination was nary precedent for Wood's decision.

Project Veritas bills itself arsenic a watchdog, often of media. It's known for utilizing hidden cameras and hiding identities to effort to ensnare journalists successful embarrassing conversations and to uncover expected wide bias.

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In a connection Friday, Project Veritas lawyer Elizabeth Locke hailed the ruling arsenic “a triumph for the First Amendment for each journalists and affirms the sanctity of the attorney-client relationship.”

“The New York Times has agelong forgotten the meaning of the journalism it claims to espouse, and has alternatively go a conveyance for the prosecution of a partisan governmental agenda,” Locke said. “Today’s ruling affirms that the New York Times’ behaviour was irregular and extracurricular the boundaries of law.”

Wood besides pushed backmost against the thought that the bid endangered property freedoms, penning successful his ruling that “steadfast fidelity to, and vigilance successful protecting First Amendment freedoms” can't infringe connected the cardinal rights of attorney-client privilege oregon privacy.

He wrote that portion aspects of Project Veritas, including its journalistic methods, whitethorn beryllium of nationalist interest, its attorney-client communications are not.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.