CONCORD, NH — Criminal charges will be not be brought against political journalists who recorded undercover videos documenting voter fraud in New Hampshire. The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office issued letters last week to two attorneys who requested criminal charges be filed against Project Veritas, founder James O’Keefe and other employees for recording discussions and interviews without consent. In New Hampshire, unless you are a public figure, attending a public event, meeting, or being out in public has always been the standard for journalists, videographers, and others to request the permission of a subject before recording them via audio or video.
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Project Veritas has been coming to New Hampshire and gathering evidence of voter fraud – or the ability to vote fraudulently – for the past seven years.
One of the requests of the latest investigation into Project Veritas by the AG’s office came from Robert Bell of Atkinson, who was recorded on video in April outside of his home by members of the Project Veritas team. In the video, Bell appears to admit to voting in both New Hampshire and his former home in Florida during the 2018 general election. Bell was arrested about two weeks after the recording occurred on a felony double-voting charge.
Sometime between April and June, Bell hired attorney Alan Cronheim of the Sisti Law Offices in Chichester and requested that charges be brought against Project Veritas.
The AG’s office investigated Bell’s complaint and reviewed the video, the Atkinson Police Department report, and information Bell provided, according to Senior Assistant Attorney General Geoffrey W. R. Ward.
“This office considered whether the conduct of Project Veritas and those acting on its behalf constituted a criminal violation (of state codes which) prohibits the willful interception of an ‘oral communication’ without the consent of all the parties in the conversation,” Ward stated. “RSA 570-A:1, II, defines ‘oral communication’ to mean ‘any verbal communication uttered by a person who has a reasonable expectation that the communication is not subject to interception, under circumstance justifying such expectation.'”
After a review of the law and evidence, Ward wrote, investigators concluded that criminal charges couldn’t be brought. The state couldn’t sustain its “burden to prove” that the recording violated the law, he wrote.
Paul Twomey, a retired Epsom attorney who has been involved in a number of election law cases, also received a letter from Ward about his complaint concerning audio and visual recordings of campaign workers for Sens. Bernie Sanders and Maggie Hassan being recorded in 2016. In the case of Hassan, it was a video about the candidate purporting to show her flipflopping on the Syrian refugee crisis. For Sanders, it was campaign workers stating that they were registering to vote at the Sanders campaign office in Manchester, so they could vote for the candidate in the first-in-the-nation primary.
Ward told Twomey that investigators had reviewed materials submitted and conducted interviews but informed him the state couldn’t sustain its burden to prove that the recordings violated the law.
O’Keefe commended the AG’s decision not to issue charges.
“The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office has joined state and federal courts across the country in vindicating the methods of Project Veritas’ undercover reporting,” O’Keefe stated in an email. “We will continue to expose fraud and abuse actively in the Granite State.”
An email to Cronheim requesting comment was not returned when this story was posted Thursday afternoon. Patch was also unable to reach Twomey by phone.
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