Part One
James O'Keefe is at it again. The conservative video maker often accused of selective editing and once arrested and convicted for an undercover caper at a senator's office, has released a new series of videos targeting a few Democratic and progressive organizers. His operatives pretended to be interested in funding Democratic political activities and secretly recorded the Democratic activists; the videos O'Keefe released have become a cause célèbre for conservatives, including Donald Trump, who claim they show Ds engaged in dirty tricks. Of course, there are questions about the editing of the tapes. And on Wednesday night, O'Keefe released another hidden-camera video showing one of these Democratic activists talking about the Mitt Romney 47 percent story I broke in 2012. The supposed scoop: The video of Romney dismissing half the nation as irresponsible freeloaders was somehow the result of covert Democratic machinations. The truth: It wasn't.
This O'Keefe video featured Scott Foval, who was the national field director of Americans United For Change, a progressive organization, until an earlier O'Keefe video led to his firing. Talking about bird-dogging—a common practice in which political groups send people to campaign events for candidates they oppose to ask questions or protest—Foval noted that Democratic bird-doggers "negotiated to get that lawyer in in Florida who recorded the 47 percent."
"Wait," the covert O'Keefe comrade said, "I thought that was a bartender." And as the world knows now, it was a bartender named Scott Prouty who had recorded that Romney fundraiser in Boca Raton and eventually shared the video with Mother Jones after I tracked him down.
No, Foval said, "the lawyer took his phone and had the bartender walk around with it and set it up." He went on: "It was a whole coordinated operation to get the phone in because they had taken away all the cellphones from all the staff."
Foval had it wrong. Prouty tells me this account is "nonsense" and "fiction." (After keeping his identity a secret for months after the 47 percent video came out, Prouty told his story here. No lawyer or network of Democratic schemers were involved in sneaking in a recording device to the $50,000-a-plate fundraiser at hedge fund manager Marc Leder's house to obtain the footage. The video was not shot with a cellphone. Prouty, who was working for the caterer, used a camera he had brought to the event. He was flying solo and not part of any Democratic conspiracy to capture Romney saying what he actually said.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/james-okeefe-scott-foval-new-47-percent-story-false
James O'Keefe is at it again. The conservative video maker often accused of selective editing and once arrested and convicted for an undercover caper at a senator's office, has released a new series of videos targeting a few Democratic and progressive organizers. His operatives pretended to be interested in funding Democratic political activities and secretly recorded the Democratic activists; the videos O'Keefe released have become a cause célèbre for conservatives, including Donald Trump, who claim they show Ds engaged in dirty tricks. Of course, there are questions about the editing of the tapes. And on Wednesday night, O'Keefe released another hidden-camera video showing one of these Democratic activists talking about the Mitt Romney 47 percent story I broke in 2012. The supposed scoop: The video of Romney dismissing half the nation as irresponsible freeloaders was somehow the result of covert Democratic machinations. The truth: It wasn't.
This O'Keefe video featured Scott Foval, who was the national field director of Americans United For Change, a progressive organization, until an earlier O'Keefe video led to his firing. Talking about bird-dogging—a common practice in which political groups send people to campaign events for candidates they oppose to ask questions or protest—Foval noted that Democratic bird-doggers "negotiated to get that lawyer in in Florida who recorded the 47 percent."
"Wait," the covert O'Keefe comrade said, "I thought that was a bartender." And as the world knows now, it was a bartender named Scott Prouty who had recorded that Romney fundraiser in Boca Raton and eventually shared the video with Mother Jones after I tracked him down.
No, Foval said, "the lawyer took his phone and had the bartender walk around with it and set it up." He went on: "It was a whole coordinated operation to get the phone in because they had taken away all the cellphones from all the staff."
Foval had it wrong. Prouty tells me this account is "nonsense" and "fiction." (After keeping his identity a secret for months after the 47 percent video came out, Prouty told his story here. No lawyer or network of Democratic schemers were involved in sneaking in a recording device to the $50,000-a-plate fundraiser at hedge fund manager Marc Leder's house to obtain the footage. The video was not shot with a cellphone. Prouty, who was working for the caterer, used a camera he had brought to the event. He was flying solo and not part of any Democratic conspiracy to capture Romney saying what he actually said.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/james-okeefe-scott-foval-new-47-percent-story-false
