I was peripherally aware that something had happened to ACORN and that it involved some unsavory conduct by some rightwing goons I'd never heard of – namely Andrew Breitbart and some little butt monkey named James O'Keefe III.
I got a lot more interested when O'Keefe was caught clumsily attempting to tap the phones of a United States Senator who is on the Homeland Security Committee. The comedic value of their efforts was high, but the issue is deadly serious – if a U.S. Senator isn't safe from wildcat surveillance none of the rest of us can assume we won't be subject to such mischief.
There needs to be more than just civil consequences here, significant though they may be. Coming at this from a prosecutor's perspective, the obvious soft target is Hannah Giles …
So, let's review. James O'Keefe showed up with Hannah Giles at an ACORN office, they pretended to be seeking advice on how the young woman might get away from an abusive pimp, there was some later editing with O'Keefe appearing in a suit left over from some 1970s blacksploitation film, and the Republican congressional stooges jumped to force a bill of attainder upon the innocent community minded organization, decimating them.
O'Keefe & Giles
Professional assrocket Sean Hannity laps it up ...
Fast forward a bit and O'Keefe is at it again, this time posing as a telephone repairman and attempting to tap Senator Mary Landrieu's phone.
Interestingly enough, one of his accomplices was the son of the acting U.S. Attorney in the area.
The fourth suspect, Robert Flanagan, 24, was released earlier Tuesday. His father, Bill, is the acting U.S. Attorney based in Shreveport. He was first assistant under Republican President George W. Bush appointee Donald Washington before Washington stepped down this month. President Barack Obama recently nominated Stephanie A. Finley for the post. His father's office declined to comment.
So, ACORN absolutely has a civil case against O'Keefe and his accomplices in this endeavor and ACORN is busy talking to District Attorneys to see if they'll take up the case. This concerns Ms. Giles enough that a Republican media operation named Base Connect is running a fundraiser for her defense.
Here is how this sort of thing could play out.
Giles is caught cold – on tape, later being interviewed about it; if a DA sees criminal intent we pretty much skip straight to the plea bargaining phase … except that this girl knows things. They'll pile it on thick, but what they want are …the bigger fish.
Here is the trouble O'Keefe and his clownservative crew face from their other antics.
All four suspects were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Flanagan is the only suspect from Louisiana. Basel is from Minnesota; O'Keefe, New Jersey; and Dai, the D.C.-Virginia area.
Now, the would-be prosecutor in me wonders just what lengths a boy in his mid twenties, sold out by his accomplice in the first case and facing jail time, would do to avoid a lengthy prison term in the second. We're not talking hardcore gangsters with a support system in prison and a culture on the outside that would swiftly punish anyone foolish enough to talk. This is a privileged puke, a manchild with no respect for the rule of the law and little acquaintance with the reality of being caught on the wrong side of the line.
I think Mr. O'Keefe will give up anyone to avoid the 85% of any federal sentence he'll do. Hell, he'll give up everyone.
And the one I'm most curious about is Andrew Breitbart, proprietor of the curiously misnamed blog Big Journalism.
Now Breitbart was heavily involved in pumping the pimp story and he was promptly under suspicion as to having been involved in the crime in Louisiana. O'Keefe apparently was on Breitbart's payroll. I draw no conclusion from these facts beyond the idea that there needs to be further investigation. This isn't going to be CSI:Louisiana – a simple subpoena to each cellular carrier will produce the phone records of the individuals involved in this.
Are any of them calls to Breitbart or any of his staff? Are they before or after the crime? How did these four come to be in Louisiana, anyway? One has to wonder who paid for their travel arrangements. And of course there is a further electronic trail to be followed; the government would have acted swiftly if the trouble at hand were the attempted wire tap of a Senator on the Homeland Security Committee. This is right off into National Security Letter territory – Patriot Act and all.
So, back to our feature subject, the lovely (on the outside) Ms. Giles. What does she know? And how badly does she want to get herself clear of this situation? If she puts O'Keefe in the jackpot on the ACORN pimp fiasco his only bargaining chip(s) would be his compatriots in the Landrieu affair presuming, of course, that they don't give him up first. Or a bigger fish.