James O’Keefe may be the world’s creepiest and least credible right-wing activist. But he got a prime-time appearance on Fox’s The Kelly File tonight to discuss his latest project, a new video supposedly exposing Hollywood hypocrisy. Without any inconvenient references by host Megyn Kelly to O’Keefe’s criminal record, his dishonesty and deception nor his alleged plan to sexually humiliate a female reporter from CNN.
In case you’ve forgotten O’Keefe’s record, here’s what I wrote when O’Keefe visited The Kelly File in January:
He’s already been arrested when he was caught trying to improperly gain access to Senator Mary Landrieu’s telephones. (He has since pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.) He was caught trying to seduce and humiliate then-CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau. He was punked to accept crackpipe money and in an effort to uncover voter fraud, he likely committed it himself. Mediaite (has reported) that a woman named Nadia Naffe has started a series of blog posts about O’Keefe called, “My Time as an Accomplice to Convicted Criminal James O’Keefe.” Naffe previously filed a criminal harassment complaint against O’Keefe (dismissed on jurisdictional grounds). Her latest accusations echo the Boudreau incident.
Since then, O’Keefe has forked over $100,000 to a former ACORN worker illegally recorded and then falsely portrayed as an enabler of underage prostitution in one of O’Keefe’s previous “sting” videos.
Kelly didn’t bring any of that up in O’Keefe’s January appearance, either. Since then, O’Keefe has gotten in legal trouble again:
From Slate:
On Jan. 27, Daniel Francisco, who was until earlier that month the executive director of Project Veritas, launched a lawsuit (case No. 51182/2014) against his former employer. In the summons, filed in the Supreme Court of New York, Francisco claimed to have been “wrongly terminated” by Project Veritas, that “Project Veritas has breached its contract” by “failing to compensate him for the final week of his employment,” that it has “tortuously interfered with Paintiff’s contract,” and that since then James O’Keefe had “defamed” Francisco.
“Essentially, a dispute has arisen and we’re pursuing our legal options due to the unethical behavior and actions of Project Veritas and Mr. O’Keefe,” said Francisco’s attorney, Kenneth J. Falcon. “There’s not many specifics I want to go into this point. I don’t know whether they have been served, but I’m sure we’ll be hearing from them soon.”
Media Matters reviewed O'Keefe's latest film and – shocker! – found it had been deceptively edited.
But the best description has to go to Wonkette:
Guys, you are just not going to believe the INCREDIBLE STING that James O’Keefe, beloved everywhere as “the wingnut Allen Funt,” managed to pull off this time! He tricked two actual Hollywood Celebrities into appearing in a supposed “anti-fracking documentary” that they thought was being made by a guy named “Muhammed,” who cleverly did not tell them that its “funding is coming from Middle Eastern oil interests.” This proves that they are “hypocrites,” somehow, because they were supposed to know that they were being asked to take a position that they already believe, in a movie with a made-up secret agenda that they were not told about! BEST. TAKEDOWN. EVAR.
Well, at least Kelly didn’t slobber over O’Keefe as she did over his former partner in deceptive sting videography, Hannah Giles. But Kelly uncritically aired an excerpt from his latest video, listened without challenge to O’Keefe’s narrative about it and asked if it were true that he had been contacted by the Senate to investigate the “cover up” he had supposedly revealed.
Yes, it’s true, O’Keefe said, though he was not at liberty to reveal much.
Kelly did ask one slightly challenging question. She asked, “Are you facing possible criminal charges” for recording people without their permission? She forgot to add the word “again” at the end of her sentence (see above).
O’Keefe bristled and insisted he had not. Then he deflected to complain that nobody “seemed to really address that issue” with Don Sterling which was a bigger invasion of privacy – at least in O’Keefe’s mind.
Reality may be a bit different, though. The Hollywood Reporter writes:
Filmmakers who were targets of an undercover sting operation by James O’Keefe have filed a criminal complaint with police and have asked the FBI to determine whether federal laws were broken when the journalist surreptitiously recorded phone calls and a lunch meeting, a spokesman for movie producers Josh and Rebecca Tickell said Wednesday.
But so long as O’Keefe is a conservative going after some of Fox News’ favorite targets, I think we can all expect him to remain a Fox News “Power Player” no matter how this turns out.
Without explanation, she didn’t actually use the video on her show: http://www.opednews.com/articles/BACKFIRE-James-O-Keefe-s-by-Gustav-Wynn-ACORN_Conservative_James-Okeefe_James-o-keefe-140127-326.html
For some reason, I’ve begun remembering that line every time I see Megyn Kelly’s TV Kangaroo Court of Opnion lately.
And for f*ck’s sake, FOX “news”, just how many times are you going to let O’Keefe punk you all with his crackpot stings and deceptively edited tapes?! The guy has been discredited time and time again yet you still have him on your network to pimp his sh!t? Seriously?
The only thing I can figure is that the FOXies want to believe his bogus, anti-left dribble soooo badly that they are willing to put their own credibility (or the cred that they think they have) on the line. Good gawd, FOX "news, O’Keefe is making fools of you!
“Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” Hehehe…