Trump Donee James O'Keefe Offering Progressives Big $$$ To Riot At Trump Inauguration. Allegedly!

He wore it best

With all the Hot International Pee Treason action (allegedly) out there, the sophomoronic antics of James O'Keefe, maker of crappy "sting" videos that don't even feature the musical stylings of Gordon Sumner, seem like an almost banal version of evil. We can say this much for Mr. O'Keefe: His faked videos are at least real fakes, sincere pretenses at "undercover journalism." They're so deeply phony you can see the strings on the toy UFOs or the fake mustache falling off, and that's reassuring somehow. Sure, it's less reassuring when the Wingnuttosphere hails O'Keefe as some kind of genius "journalist," but what we're saying here is that at least with James O'Keefe, you know where he stands. A hundred yards away, at least, or he's in violation of the restraining order.

O'Keefe's "Project Veritas" (Latin for "Edit it together and make it look scary") is apparently trying to infiltrate groups that'll be protesting the Trump inauguration, only this time his "operatives" got caught on video themselves posing as representatives of a fictitious wealthy liberal donor who's

offering huge sums of money to progressive activists if they would disrupt the ceremony and “put a stop to the inauguration” and the related proceedings to such a degree that donors to the clandestine effort would “turn on a TV and maybe not even see Trump.” To have riots blot out coverage of Trump, the donor offered “unlimited resources,” including to shut down bridges into D.C.

The video was captured by members of progressive groups Americans Take Action and The Undercurrent -- a project of American Family Voices -- which was previously targeted by O'Keefe in one of his attempts to invent stories of widespread voting fraud. Undercurrent executive producer Lauren Windsor has put together her own edited video containing highlights of the counter-sting, borrowing from O'Keefe's method of just showing the good stuff. Among the operatives recorded was Project Very Tossed volunteer Allison Maas, who had previously been caught trying to infiltrate Russ Feingold's Senate campaign and a Hillary Clinton campaign office.

Windsor, in investigating Project Veritas, discovered the name of a front group, Breakthrough Dev Group, that O’Keefe was using to set up stings. Somebody from BDG contacted an allied group, which reached out to activist Ryan Clayton. Windsor arranged to have the meeting secretly recorded. (It’s likely Maass was recording as well. It is plausible that O’Keefe’s plan was not to disrupt the inaugural, but instead to catch lefties offering to do so.)

So let's see what Windsor came up with!

Huh! Well, that definitely looks like at least an initial attempt to get Clayton to say "Oh golly, we'd just love to sow discord during the inauguration for big money," with Clayton being very careful to point out that these darn hippies don't think violence is groovy. We get that the idea is to turn O'Keefe's methods back on him, but it also seems a little... thin? Winsdsor told HuffPo she plans to release more video in "dribs and drabs" like O'Keefe does, so maybe there'll be something more outrageous on the way, but even as it is, it's nice to see liberal groups wising up and being ready to counter-sting the Project Very False folks. Now if O'Keefe's progressive targets can find a way to actually pry loose a big chunk of his donors' money to set up a communist daycare or something, then film the wingnuts disappointedly wondering where the radical scandal is, only to get a very sticky hug from a toddler.

If nothing else, it's a good reminder to progressives to be cautious when someone shows up at a meeting and starts suggesting it would be some really great activism to go throw rocks at cops. Keep your phones handy, kids.

It's also a good time to remind everyone that Young Master O'Keefe managed to pry at least $10,000 out of the Trump Foundation's notoriously tight purse. Gee, Donald Trump wouldn't pretend to ratf*ck himself , would he?

Just kidding of course he would.

Update: After this puppy ran, we heard back from Lauren Windsor, who wanted to let us know the short vid above was merely a teaser, and that this here is the longer response to O'Keefe and his attempted sting. It is not "thin" after all!

We have to say, it's nice to see O'Keefe getting a taste of his own medicine -- and from people who are much more honest than he is. Thanks for the update, Ms. Windsor!

[ HuffPo ]