FBI seizes phone of journalist Cassandra Fairbanks in Project Veritas-linked probe
FBI agents executed a search warrant at the Maryland home of Gateway Pundit journalist Cassandra Fairbanks in November 2021 and seized her phone in connection with the federal investigation into who obtained Ashley Biden's diary. No charges were filed against Fairbanks.
On November 3, 2021, FBI agents arrived at the suburban Washington home of Cassandra Fairbanks, a reporter for The Gateway Pundit, with a search warrant seeking her phone. The warrant was part of the same federal probe in which agents had earlier raided James O'Keefe and other Project Veritas figures regarding the chain of custody of Ashley Biden's diary. Fairbanks was not charged. Press-freedom organizations, including the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, raised concerns about the use of search warrants against working journalists. The case was cited in subsequent debates over the Justice Department's news-media guidelines updated by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022.