Update: I wanted to update this with a tidbit of information. Some on the right may be tempted into saying this is a case of the DOJ getting revenge on Obama's enemies and claim that O'Keefe is a victim of a leftist smear campaign of some sort. Well, you know how they think. Well, here's the thing, a little tidbit from the T-P's article (which has been updated since I first posted this) is a quote from David Vitter expressing his confidence in Jim Letten, the US Attorney for the eastern half of Louisiana. Now, Letten has developed a reputation as an anti-corruption watchdog, and he has been praised by the local media. He was appointed initially by George W Bush. Senator Landrieu recommended his re-appointment. She really had little choice given the local media's love affair with Letten.
More below the jump.
Letten has been a relentless anti-corruption prosecutor. He deserves kudos, but I have never been one to take Bush appointees at their face value. One of his first acts was working on behalf of a reverse discrimination suit against Orleans DA Eddie Jordan. I don't want to get too much into that, but suffice it to say, I was suspicious of that prosecution (never liked reverse discrimination claims). So, if O'Keefe is prosecuted here, it'll be by another conservative --- a Bush appointee. So, don't let the right wingers tell you that this is a left wing smear by Obama's DOJ.
The FBI, alleging a plot to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in downtown New Orleans, arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group's credibility.
FBI Special Agent Steven Rayes alleges that O'Keefe aided and abetted two others, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan, who dressed up as employees of a telephone company and attempted to interfere with the office's telephone system.
A fourth person, Stan Dai, was accused of aiding and abetting Basel and Flanagan. All four were charged with entering fedral property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.
A witness from Landrieu's staff said O'Keefe was present in the office and claimed to be "waiting for someone to arrive."
Link
Okay, here's basically what you got. O'Keefe has been accusing others of skirting/violating the law. But like most right wing airbags, he's just another hypocrite. This is the way these clowns work. It's pure psychological projection. I firmly believe that that is the essence of the right wing brain. Everything they accuse others of doing is, exactly, what they are doing. You can bank on it.
Edit: I think O'Keefe was attempting to cut and paste some sound together to try to discredit a Democrat. ANY Democrat would do for people like O'Keefe.
As for comments below about Mary being a conservadem, and thus it doesn't make sense for right wingers to go after her. Do understand this: to likes of O'Keefe Mary is considered a threat, because she's only conservative, and not a right wing airbag. She did, eventually, vote for HCR. Now, that might be a HCR that progressives don't like, but to these folks that makes her Stalin's best buddy.
Oh, and Jonze's comment below is absolutely correct. They'll all be crying about how the leftist DOJ is persecuting Obama's enemies!
Thanks for the Rec List folks. I really have to thank Mr O'Keefe for that honor! Also, easiest rec listing ever!
Update: Looks like the Robert Flanagan arrested here is the son of an acting US Attorney for the western half of Louisiana. I'm guessing Flanagan Sr won't be acting in that capacity much longer. H/T to Briefer.
Update: Politico has the sworn affidavit. H/T to Jonze
Update: This is rich! MSNBC is calling O'Keefe a "filmmaker." The picture they have of him is one of him dressed up in his nice conservative Sunday School outfit. Blech! Is there no distinction between "filmmaker" and propagandist anymore?
NEW ORLEANS - A conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos shone a spotlight on alleged corruption by the liberal activist group ACORN was arrested with three other men and accused of plotting to wiretap the New Orleans offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.
I love this nonsense about how he "shone a spotlight." Give me a frickin break. He cut and paste a bunch of material mostly out of context, and now he's frickin Morley Safer.
It's rare that I praise the Times-Picayune. But they put O'Keefe's Acorn bit in a much better perspective than MSNBC. Pay attention:
Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group's credibility.
Compare that with MSNBC's "shone a light on" nonsense. What the Times-Picayune does here is basically tell us something that is indisputable. His videos did severely damage Acorn's credibility. They don't treat this like his allegations are factual like the wording of the MSNBC piece implies.
Update: TPM Muckraker Has an important article on this regarding the Pelican Institute, a conservative think tank here in Louisiana. The Pelican Institute was hosting a talk by O'Keefe, where O'Keefe, modestly, of course, was going to discuss his film editing techniques, I mean, investigative journalism. It also appears that the Pelican Institute is affiliated with BigGovernment.com, as their articles are published there.
Update: Kevin Kane of the Pelican Institute is a supporter of the Tea Parties according to the American Spectator.
And looking at the Pelican Institute's "staff and scholar's" page, we find this: The whole operation seems to be working in concert with the Reason Foundation, which publishes Reason Magazine.
Update: Thanks to the commenters below, we have more dots to be connected...
One of the young men arrested has a twitter feed. One of his followers? None other than conservative writer and activist Richard Viguerie. H/T to Footbag and kat68.
So, far the only connection I can find between any of these people and Mary Landrieu is that Reason Foundation considered her one of the members in their resistance to Healthcare Reform, and seemed teeved that she was "bought off" by the Medicaid funding fix for Louisiana (worth up to $300 million dollars). This was a fix that Bobby Jindal asked for, but once the deal went through, he steered away from like the plague.
Update: Also from the comments is this guy, Stan Dai. According to this blog, this is Stan Dai:
STAN DAI, Lisle, Ill., attends The George Washington University majoring in Political Science. He is editor-in-chief of The GW Patriot, an alternative conservative student newspaper, a Club 100 Activist of Young America’s Foundation, and an Undergraduate Fellow on Terrorism of the Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies. He is co-founder of GW’s Students Defending Democracy, a volunteer on several political campaigns, and active in the GW College Republicans and GW Colonials for Life. He was a 2003 Honorable Mention in the U.S. Institute of Peace Essay Contest.
One Stan Dai was listed as the Assistant Director of the The Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence (ICCAE) at Trinity (Washington) University. The ICCAE says it prepares young people for careers in intelligence.
Update: kat68 brings us this info. Apparently, O'Keefe tweeted a on Jan 1st that he had something big planned. Was tapping Senator Landrieu's phones the something big?
Back to Stan Dai in this update. The Times-Picayune's Nola.com article mentions the Phillips Foundation which is a trust that, apparently, promotes conservative journalism by giving awards to conservative undergraduates. The founding Trustee was none other than the late Robert Novak.
Here is a list of their current trustees:
The Phillips Foundation Trustees
Thomas L. Phillips, Chairman
The founder of The Phillips Foundation, Mr. Phillips serves as Chairman of Eagle Publishing, Inc.
Becky Norton Dunlop
Mrs. Dunlop is Vice President for External Relations at The Heritage Foundation.
Thomas A. Fuentes
Mr. Fuentes is Senior Fellow of The Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.
Alfred S. Regnery
Mr. Regnery is Publisher of The American Spectator and former President of Regnery Publishing, Inc., a prominent conservative book publisher.
Ronald E. Robinson
Mr. Robinson is President of Young America’s Foundation
Trustee Emeritus
Donald P. Hodel
Mr. Hodel served as Secretary of both Interior and Energy during the Reagan Administration.
And another h/t for kat68. That comment gives us the link between Basel and O'Keefe. They both founded conservative papers on their college campuses, University of Minnesota-Morris, and Rutgers University, respectively. And what's the connection? The Leadership Institute. And what is that? Why another right wing thinkery. Here is a list of their staff. Now, I'll be honest and say that I am not familiar with anyone on that list. But I am familiar with an organization that someone on that list works for. Apparently, Abigail Alger is the New Media Manager for CampusReform.org.
For everyone who loves their college professors, and is tired of the right wing thugocracy harassing their favorite college professors for daring to teach that the world wasn't made in seven days, and that Jesus didn't descend from the heavens on angels wings to bless the US of A, CampusReform.org should be familiar to you. CampusReform.org is David Horowitz's organization that blacklists professors for being anti-American, or worse yet, members of the seditionist organization known as --- you guessed it --- The Democratic Party.
These are the types of people that influenced the likes of O'Keefe. They are the ones who have told them that facts are not really facts at all, and only evidence of liberal bias of the fact collectors. To Horowitz and his gang, liberal college professors are organized into a giant cabal to hide the truth of the rightness of right wing nuttery. So, of course, O'Keefe would go around cutting and pasting video and audio together to get the facts that he wants about ACORN, and call it journalism, because that's what liberal professors and journalists do anyway. So, why can't a conservative make up his own reality?
And TPM Muckraker has the story of conservative campus journalism, and how, it is likely, that these guys got together. Again h/t to kat68. I just got to say about kat68, you deserve half credit for this diary. Your research has a lot to do with the updates here.
Gonna point to kat68 again on this. She makes an interesting observation. On three of the suspects' twitter accounts there is the usage of the latin word "veritas", which seems, on the face of it, as nothing more than a silly over the top protestation of innocence (I'm thinking, "the lady doth protest too much"). But this could well be code for "shut the f*ck up." I think this does go quite far up the food chain, and someone is going to get busted big time.
More on the Pelican Institute:Lamar White over at Cenlamar had a write up about the Pelican Institute this past August. He described it as an Astro-Turf think tank.
The Pelican Institute is a Louisiana-based think tank founded last year by native New Yorker and Tulane grad Kevin Kane. Jeb Bruneau, son of former State Representative Peppi Bruneau, is its Vice President. (Peppi, as some may recall, was accused of timing his retirement announcement to maximally benefit Jeb’s campaign for the seat. Jeb lost anyway). Though it labels itself as “non-partisan,” the Pelican Institute is undeniably bent toward conservative and libertarian political philosophies, with a concentration on limiting government. Last year, in an article in The Wall Street Journal, the Pelican Institute was described as a group of up-and-comers confronting the entrenched corruption of Louisiana through serious policy research.
Important Question: What is Veritas Visuals? According to the Times-Picayune via BigGOvernment.com, O'Keefe worked for Veritas Visuals, but their website isn't working, so I can't get any information about this company. Earlier, kat68 suggested that the "veritas" appearing in the suspects' twitter feeds, might be code for keeping quiet. Is it actually code for this "company"(?), and if so, is that indicative of just how right kat68 is??? If anyone has info about Veritas Visuals, it would be awfully useful. Thanks.
Okay, looked a bit into this. Veritas Visuals is apparently the company that O'Keefe published his ACORN videos through. The real question is this: who owns/funds Veritas Visuals?
Okay, it appears that Veritas Visuals is something that O'Keefe set up himself, but we can't be sure. Whatever the case, the Veritas Visuals website has been taken down. Many of the original videos there are still on the Google Cache, but there is some reason he decided to distribute his videos through this "company", and I find it intriguing that it is suddenly off line.
A lot of this info I posted here has little context. That's mostly because I don't have much context for it just yet. For now, this is just a depository of information here. I will try to put it in context later. Some ideas are buzzing through my head. It is clear to me, however, that this guy is on some self-absorbed ego trip, thinking it's him against the world. I think he has deluded himself into believing that he's the man with the one and only truth, and it is just the opposite of what everyone else thinks. And it's all up to our little maverick to set things straight. Someone, somewhere, is manipulating this guy because of this delusion, feeding it, and using him like a puppet. I could be wrong though: he could be a mastermind of buffoonery all to himself.