Posted on 01/26/2010 12:41:17 PM PST by Cheap_Hessian
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."
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
NO, they deserve Justice! Innocent until proven guilty, but its funny how everyone on here is trying to dream/make/come up with why they are innocent. . He's 25 years old. He probably got a pretty big head on him after his early success and tried to push the bounds. I'll give him innocent until proven guilty, but can we at least look with open eyes and say that it doesn't look too good right now? And if/when proven guilty, can we dispense with the "Patriot" lines??? If found guilty by a jury of his peers, he broke FEDERAL laws! If he was an ACORN nut we'd want to lynch him in the town square! What if this had been Palin instead of Landreau????
We are slowly getting details, but there must be a lot more to the story than is out yet.
I think there is going to be a surprise coming.
Traffick in underage kids. No problem. (ACORN vid)
Try to bug an office. Get arrested immediately. (Assuming you are a Republican)
Both are wrong, but I would argue the former is far more nefarious than the latter.
We will see.
Jim Letten is a good prosecutor who has many notches in his belt for taking down crooked politicians.
But, in the end, their fate will be in the hands of an Orleans Parish jury made up of upstanding New Orleans citizens.
none of this makes sense
you do not need 4 guys to wiretap a phone firstly
OK lets say they are.
so these two guys are held for trying to get into the building and O keefe pulls his phone out to record it.
Now why on earth would he do that but then it states he is waiting in the room but there is a witness.
witness to what .
okeefe holding a phone and wiretapping it.
even my youngest kid knows that when he does wrong he doesn’t do it in full view.
This sounds to me that they are after him and this is one bit time set up to shut him up
“I suspect he’s not that stupid (I could be wrong) and this is NOT the end of the story.”
Ditto. It ain’t over until the fat lady sings.
Like I said before, the people making these charges better have their act together.
And the country is in no mood for more Leftard crap.
it is the Flanagan father-son relationship that looks the most suspicious... why in the Hell would O’Kieffe risk this association?
was thinking that he was making an undercover investigative report about how lax the security is at Senate offices.. like those newspaper guys who try and sneak a gun onto a plane to prove we need more security..
This might be a setup from O’Keefe. One of the guys arrested is the son of a Republican U.S. prosecutor???
I think someone is fixing to go down in Landrieu’s office.
that’s true
4 guys trying to wire tap a phone
it sounds so stupid that I can’t even think anyone would go along with it
What we have 1 guy doing the tapping and what do the other 3 do , ?Watch him for training
this is just plain stupid and yet again the justice dept, Feds and the white house , with ACORN are on their roll of perverting justice and silencing those who expose them
Interesting to see how the AG will handle this case...
I mean when baton weilding Black men stand outside polling booths in Phila and intimidate voters by claiming “You are about to know what its like to be ruled by the black man”... have their case dropped.... then of course this White man that was attempting to uncover TRUTH in our political system will have his case dropped too RIGHT?
Oh, it parses very well.
It points out that O'Keefe and DAI are being kept separate from the other two.
It points out that O'Keefe admitted to planning something.
But is it the same thing the other two have confessed to?
That is why it is worded as it was.
O’Keefe should have known that from the day he exposed Obama’s ACORN, he has been under 24/7 counter-surveillance. Even if the FBI was not at point, ACORN has the money, manpower, technical resources and the motive to get the job done.
When you are a target, and O’Keefe was, there is no room for shades of gray.
I agree. This does not add up.
From the affidavit: “O’KEEFE and DAI have also admitted to federal agents that [sic] worked with FLANAGAN and BASEL in the planning, coordination, and preparation of the operation.”
Sounds serious. But what, exactly, was “the operation”? The affidavit implies a plot to wiretap. But that’s not what they’re charged with. The only language they can muster in the affidavit is intent to “interfere” with a telephone. And gaining entrance to a federal building under false pretenses. Note that the affidavit charges only that the phone had been “manipulated”—an ominous way of saying the phone was handled.
The “operation” might have been something very different than what’s being portrayed here. As you point out, it seems odd none of them would have lawyered up. So maybe they saw no need to, thinking the facts would show that what appeared to be criminal was not—perhaps naively. Each of the nefarious sounding actions in the affidavit could be the actions of someone pretending to do something, with no intent of actually doing it.
What if they’d been asked to test the security of senate offices and believed “the operation” to be sanctioned by Landrieu’s office or Homeland Security? A stretch, perhaps, but so is the idea that O’Keefe and the son of a US Attorney would be so dumb as to try to actually wiretap a senator’s office.
O’Keefe would not have been recording this if he was part of a plot to wire tap a phone. This is a set up and I would not be surprised if the telephone company guys were associated with ACORN.
Actually it sounds like the guy who caught them was the GSA building employee who asked to see their IDs and got suspicious when they said they'd left them in their car.
Something smells. OH, IT’s New Orleans?
No wonder.
is one of them supposed to tap it while the other 3 watch.
none of this adds up at all, even the affidavit by the officer says they admit but it doesn't state admit what
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