’If I was a Hillary supporter, I’d win a Pulitzer Prize’: O’Keefe to RT on exposing Democratic fraud

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe has been vilified in the mainstream media for his four-video series, ‘Rigging the Election’ ‒ charges he believes are unfair. He joins RT America’s Lindsay France in the FishTank to discuss his investigation.

The biggest complaint against O’Keefe’s undercover operation from his critics was that it was “selectively edited,” he tells France, insisting that all he did was consolidate “hundreds of hours of tape” into “a coherent storyline, connecting various dots” ‒ just like any journalist would do.

“All journalism is edited. The words ‘selectively edited’ is a misnomer, I mean, what journalism is not produced?” he says. “On TV, you see these guys [saying] I’m a criminal and I’m a liar” for how he produces his stories. “All of my journalism requires using pretenses and undercover work.”

Sting operations are necessary to tell the stories the mainstream media can’t or won’t, O’Keefe says. He doesn’t have sources in government that he needs to worry about maintaining for access. The important thing, to him, is to allow citizens to see “what happens behind closed doors.”

The four-video ‘Rigging the Election’ series was released between October 17 and 26, and shows how the conspiracy to win the White House for Hillary Clinton “was orchestrated right from the White House down,” O’Keefe says. “These are high-level operatives… The expose was probably one of the most powerful, indicting things of this election.”

The first video explained how the Clinton campaign incites violence at Trump rallies. The second video uncovered “a diabolical step-by-step voter fraud strategy,” including an admission by one key operative that the Democrats have been rigging elections for 50 years. The third video focused on “exposed prohibited communications between Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the DNC and the non-profit organization Americans United for Change.”

The final video ties the whole thing together by breaking down the process of the investigation. Project Veritas Action donated $20,000 to Bob Creamer’s Americans United for Change (AUFC). A month later “in an unexpected twist,” the money was returned.

“AUFC president Brad Woodhouse, the recipient of the $20,000, heard that Project Veritas Action was releasing undercover videos exposing AUFC’s activities,” the group wrote. “He told a journalist that AUFC was going to return the twenty thousand dollars. He said it was because they were concerned that it might have been an illegal foreign donation.”

O’Keefe says that his goal is to examine “the character of our political institutions.”

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“We must be the last line of defense against government corruption, fraud and abuse,” he tells France. “Veritas’ job is to go out, infiltrate, expose and release it to the public.”

“We are living in a banana republic at this point, where we are no longer able to speak truth to power... the real story is always the media,” O’Keefe adds. “The citizens are the barbarians at the gates, we are the people that are coming up against their palace guard, and we are saying, ‘We’re not going to take this anymore’. We’re going to do your job for you, media. We’re going to report the stories ourselves. And this whole series has really become a story about the mainstream media: Their response to it has been the story.”

Indeed, the response within the Democratic leadership proves that the Project Veritas Action investigation uncovered some uncomfortable truths for the party, O’Keefe tells France. In reaction to the first two videos, Scott Foval was fired from his position as AUFC’s  national field director, while Creamer “stepped down” from the Clinton campaign.

Although O’Keefe objects to being called a troublemaker and a lawbreaker ‒ he tells France he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor six years ago for having a camera in a federal building ‒ some questions have been raised about the potential legality of his sting operations. Several of the conversations in the videos were recorded in so-called “two-party consent” states, ThinkProgress reported. In 11 US states, all parties must consent to being recorded, and at least two participants told the liberal-leaning outlet that they were in a two-party consent state during conference calls that appear in the videos.

O’Keefe denies any wrongdoing.

“Attorneys vet everything we do, and we’re very careful to film things where people have no expectation of privacy. We are very careful about not breaking any laws whatsoever,” he tells France. “It’s always about targeting the messenger, ignoring the message, obfuscating. Deny, deny, deny.”

“If I was a Hillary supporter, I’d win a Pulitzer Prize, I’d have Emmy awards, I’d have Peabody awards, I’d have Oscar Academy awards, I’d have book deals,” he added.