'NO VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL LAW' IN ACORN 'PIMP' VIDEOS

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7780

Brad Friedman on 4/1/2010
CA A.G. FINDS 'NO VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL LAW' IN 'SEVERELY EDITED' ACORN 'PIMP' VIDEOS; RELEASES RAW TAPES FOR FIRST TIME
Unreleased raw footage reviewed by AG Jerry Brown's investigation was obtained from Rightwing activists O'Keefe and Giles in exchange for immunity from prosecution
Contradicting MSM coverage, O'Keefe 'never claimed he was a pimp,' 'did not act as a journalist'...
Echoing the recent report of the Kings County, NY, District Attorney who completed a five-month probe finding "no criminality" seen in video tapes secretly taken of low-level ACORN and ACORN Housing workers last year in New York, California's Attorney General has now reached a similar conclusion regarding videos recorded in three different cities in the Golden State last Summer, according to a report released today which finds the workers "committed no violation of criminal law."

While describing "highly inappropriate behavior" by some of the workers caught on secret video tapes made by Rightwing activists, CA AG Jerry Brown's report finds that "the evidence does not show that the ACORN employees in California violated state criminal laws in connection with their conversations" with activists posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend.

In a press release announcing his 28-page report (and accompanying 55 pages of attachments and exhibits with it), the AG's office says the publicly released videos taken in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino were "severely edited."

Brown's statement in the announcement is highly critical of Rightwing activists James O'Keefe III and Hannah Giles, who posed as a prostitute and her law school boyfriend in the videos posted on Rightwing media mogul Andrew Breitbart's "Big Government" website last year and played extensively on Fox News, as well as other non-partisan media outlets.

"The evidence illustrates that things are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality," says Brown in the statement. "Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor."

His report notes that the office's "investigation has involved attorneys from all three legal divisions – Criminal Law, Public Rights, and Civil Law – as well as Special Agents from the Department’s Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence" and included a review of "the unedited recordings made by O’Keefe and Giles."

In exchange for "immunity from prosecution," O'Keefe and Giles provided "the full, unedited videotapes" to Brown's office who, therefore, "did not determine if they violated California's Invasion of Privacy Act" when secretly recording the ACORN workers. Those workers, he notes in his report, may still "be able to bring a private suit against O'Keefe and Giles for recording a confidential conversation without consent."

O'Keefe, Giles, and Breitbart have previously refused to release the unedited footage of their videos publicly. Brown's report details why they likely did not wish to, as important, often exculpatory details from each encounter were not included in the edited versions, released to much partisan fanfare last year.

The unedited California videos have now been posted on the CA Attorney General's website. (They are also linked at the end of this article.) The press release also notes that the AG has unedited tapes from other cities outside of California as well. The BRAD BLOG has made a request for those videos from the office of the Attorney General.

'Severely Edited'

The description of the videos as "severely edited" also echoes the Brooklyn D.A.'s office, which was quoted as describing them as a "heavily edited splice job" when his report was released several weeks ago.

Brown's report also echoes an independent investigation [PDF] released by former MA Attorney General Scott Harshbarger early last December, but unreported in the New York Times and many others. That report was commissioned by ACORN as an external review. In it, Harshbarger found serious organizational concerns with the four-decade old community organizing group, but "no pattern of criminality" as seen in any of the highly-edited, heavily-overdubbed video tape releases.

Despite repeated official investigations finding a complete lack of criminality in any of the O'Keefe/Giles/Breitbart tapes --- other than by the filmmakers themselves, who may have broken the law in at least two different states by secretly taping workers --- ACORN recently announced that the publicity from the hoax videos had succeeded in drying up their private funding, and forced them to shutter their doors as of today.

Of the four ACORN employees O'Keefe and Giles met with in three different California cities, none "committed, solicited or conspired to commit any criminal acts," says Brown in his report. "There is no evidence that any of the ACORN employees had the intent to aid and abet such criminal conduct or agreed to join in [O'Keefe and Giles purported] illegal conduct."

The Attorney General also confirms that O'Keefe never appeared in any of the offices "dressed as a 1970s Superfly pimp," as he had been edited to appear at the beginning and end of each of the videos. Neither did O' Keefe ever claim to be a pimp to any of the workers whose good natures, AG Brown says, O'Keefe and Giles preyed upon...

Misreported 'Pimp'

"In his actual taped sessions with ACORN workers, [O'Keefe] was dressed in a shirt and tie, presented himself as a law student, and said he planned to use the prostitution proceeds to run for Congress. He never claimed he was a pimp," [emphasis added] the AG's office says.

The BRAD BLOG has been covering the media's misreporting of this story since late January, and was recently successful in forcing the New York Times to issue a partial correction to multiple stories in which they repeatedly misreported O'Keefe dressed as, or "posing as," a pimp. Though it took two months --- and several long email exchanges with both the "paper of record's" Senior Editor for Standards, Greg Brock, as well as with their Public Editor (ombudsman), Clark Hoyt --- their partial correction was finally published just last week, after ACORN had already announced they were being forced to shut down.

The paper is still standing, misleadingly, by the notion that O'Keefe "clearly represented himself as a pimp" to the ACORN workers, even though in every case he represented himself instead as Giles' law school student, or sometimes banker, boyfriend, trying to help rescue her from an abusive pimp who had tried to stalk and kill her. Scores of other media outlets have followed the Times' lead in misreporting the facts.

Brown's report notes what the NYTimes and most other media outlets have failed to report:

Although O’Keefe is dressed in stereotypical 1970s pimp garb in the opening and closing scenes of the videos released on the internet, when O’Keefe visited each of the ACORN offices, ACORN employees reported that he was actually dressed in a shirt and tie. Also, contrary to the suggestion in the edited videos, O’Keefe never stated he was a pimp.
While speaking with the various ACORN workers, Brown's report notes:

Giles continued to portray herself as an abused prostitute desperate for help and pushed for any advice. She said she wanted to save the El Salvadoran girls from being preyed upon and raped. She claimed the pimp put a hit out on her and injured her by pushing her down the stairs.
Brown goes on to explain that O'Keefe's edited video tapes from the Los Angeles ACORN office, "did not include all Giles statements regarding the abusive pimp, her tragic life, and fear for the underage girls, or [ACORN worker Lavelle] Stewart's statements that ACORN could not help."

According to the AG's review of the unedited videos, of the 4 ACORN workers O'Keefe and Giles spoke to in three different California cities:

•One instructed them that "no bank would fund the couple based on an illegitimate prostitution business and ACORN would not get involved with an illegitimate prostitution business."
•One, after being told that Giles had been "sold by a pimp in Miami to a pimp in Los Angeles" who was "extremely abusive" brought Giles to an office door marked "Program for Torture Victims" and told Giles "she should speak with the people working there."
•One, after realizing she was being hoaxed, told O'Keefe and Giles "that ACORN would not approve of their business or of her giving them advice, but that she personally supported legalizing prostitution." She then went on to explain how she had murdered her husband, though both of her ex-husbands, as the San Bernardino County Sheriff's office would later report, are still very much alive. She also "told O'Keefe he resembled Princess Diana."
•One, who "speaks limited English ... went along with the conversation in hopes of getting information from the couple that he could provide to law enforcement in the event they were telling the truth." After the couple left the office, the worker immediately telephoned his cousin who is a detective at the National City Police Department to report the matter. He later reported the incident to a fellow employee and to an ACORN board member. The matter was then reported to the San Diego Police Department's human smuggling division.
That's it. That's all. And in every case, O'Keefe withheld important details from the edited versions of the video tapes he released, and reprehensibly titled as "ACORN Child Prostitution Investigation."

Immunity from prosecution

In regard to immunity given to the Rightwing scammers, Brown states that following a request to investigate the matter by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was determined that his office "needed the complete, unedited video and audio recordings made by O’Keefe and Giles." The pair sought, and received, a deal for immunity from criminal prosecution before they would turn over the tapes, according to the AG's report:

O’Keefe and Giles agreed to produce the full recordings if the Attorney General agreed not to prosecute them for violations of California’s privacy laws. This Office determined that the fastest and most efficient means to comply with the Governor’s request was to agree not to prosecute.
He goes on to note that "the facts presented" in this case "strongly suggests that O’Keefe and Giles’s violated state privacy laws and provides fair warning to them and others that this type of activity can be prosecuted in California."

'O'Keefe did not act as a journalist'

In conclusion, the AG's report highlights the hit job pulled off by the three partisan activists, and takes pains to note that despite the adament claims of O'Keefe, Breitbart and other Rightwing media outlets' absurd suggestions to the contrary, O'Keefe "did not act as a journalist objectively reporting a story":

The edited O’Keefe videos released on the BigGovernment.com website portrayed ACORN as an organization infested with employees committing crimes. However, the impression of rampant illegal conduct created by the recordings at the various ACORN offices around the country is not supported by the evidence related to the videos in California. Our investigation revealed facts which were not reflected in the recordings. The San Diego employee’s answers were influenced by his limited English and intent to contact the police. The San Bernardino ACORN receptionist knew it to be a prank and made outrageous and false statements.

O’Keefe stated he was out to make a point and to damage ACORN and therefore did not act as a journalist objectively reporting a story. The video releases were heavily edited to feature only the worst or most inappropriate statements of the various ACORN employees, and to omit some of the most salient statements by O’Keefe and Giles. Each of the ACORN employees recorded in California was a low level employee whose job was to help the needy individuals who walked in the door seeking assistance. Giles and O’Keefe lied to engender compassion, but then edited their statements from the released videos. Would it have been best had each ACORN employee simply refused to deal with the couple and shown them the door when their story came out? Of course.

ACORN was not the criminal enterprise described by O’Keefe in his “Chaos for Glory” statement – it did not receive billions in federal funds and did not control elections.

In fact, ACORN had received an average of just $3.5 million in federal tax dollars over each of the last 15 years. Moreover, there is no evidence that any vote was ever cast illegally, in any election, following an improper registration by an ACORN worker. In most cases, such improper registrations were discovered by ACORN themselves and reported to authorities.

Nonetheless, the anti-poverty organization of 400,000 low- and middle-income member families in 75 cities was successfully targeted and put out of business by Republicans; the long, concerted smear campaigns intended to do little more than undercut ACORN's successful voter registration drives. Those drives had succeeded in legally registering hundreds of thousands of low- and middle-income voters, many of whom tend to vote Democratic. For that, for enfranchising Americans to participate in their own democracy, the GOP had to put them out of business.

Mission accomplished.

Men arrested have links to intelligence community

http://rawstory.com/2010/01/men-charged-attempting-bug-landrieus-office-intelligence-links/

Landrieu phone plot: Men arrested have links to intelligence community
By Sahil Kapur
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

WASHINGTON -- Two of the three men arrested on Monday along with "ACORN pimp" James O'Keefe for "maliciously tampering" with Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) phones in her New Orleans office have ties to the United States intelligence community.

The three accused by the FBI of "aiding and abetting" O'Keefe are Stan Dai, Robert Flanagan and Joseph Basel. O'Keefe is 25, and the other three are 24.

Dai's links to the intelligence community appear to be particularly strong. He was a speaker at Georgetown University's Central Intelligence Agency summer school program in June 2009, and is also listed as an Assistant Director at the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence at Trinity in D.C.

The university's president Patricia McGuire told The Associated Press that it promoted careers in intelligence but denied that it trains students to be spies.

The Trinity program received a "$250,000 renewable grant from the U.S. Intelligence Community" upon launching in 2004, according to its Web site. The program's goals are stated:

The IC CAE in National Security Studies Program was established during 2005 in response to the nation's increasing need for IC professionals who are educated and trained with the unique knowledge, skills and capabilities to carry out America's national security objectives.

The CIA summer school packet also notes that Dai "served as the Operations Officer of a Department of Defense irregular warfare fellowship program."

Dai has been an undergraduate fellow with the Washington-based national security think tank Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies (FDD), according to his College Leadership Program award biography at the Phillips Foundation -- as Lindsay Beyerstein first reported.

FDD claims that it's partly funded by the US State Department. Its Leadership Council and Board of Advisers comprise many high-profile conservative politicians and public figures -- including former House speaker Newt Gingrich, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), former Bush official Richard Perle and columnist Charles Krauthammer.

Dai traveled to Israel for two weeks in 2004 on an FDD-sponsored trip, the Daily Herald reported. "All expenses (room, board and travel) will be assumed by FDD," FDD's Web site said of its Israel program.

A host of FDD testimonials from Academic Fellows reveal that many fellows have traveled to Israel for training and field trips. The Foundation says the course includes "lectures by academics, diplomats, military and intelligence officials, and politicians from Israel, Jordan, India, Turkey and the United States."

FDD proclaims that "Like America, Israel is at the forefront in the war on terrorism." Further explaining its interest in Israel, FDD declares:

Both the United States and Israel are democracies, and both face the same enemy. It is this connection between Israel's experience and the future of the United States that is the essence of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

One FDD testimonial, by 2004-2005 fellow Dr. Cathal J. Nolan, highlighted the group's bond with high-level intelligence and government officials in Israel:

The access which FDD provided to top government officials--and to academic, police, security service, and intelligence experts at the highest levels--was truly remarkable. I know of no other foundation or fellowship program which is able to provide so much top-level access and first-hand intelligence and security service information in so compact a form, or in such an intellectually stimulating environment.


The CIA and Office of Director of National Intelligence have both told Politico that despite Dai's evident connections to the intelligence community, he never officially worked for them.

Dai's co-conspirator Robert Flanagan is currently seeking a Master of Science degree from the Missouri State University's (Fairfax, Virginia) Defense and Strategic Studies program, according to his LinkedIn profile (which was captured by Beyerstein before it was taken down Tuesday.)

The DSS Web site description affirms its connections to "the intelligence community":

The program’s location also provides DSS with the opportunity to draw adjunct faculty members from the top ranks of government, the defense industry, and the intelligence community.

The program also appears to have a close relationship with the conservative establishment. Inside Higher Ed reported in 2007 that the program's "full-time faculty of three and its nine affiliated lecturers tend to come mainly from positions in Republican administrations and conservative-leaning institutions."


It appears to be an elite program and one Facebook group bills it as ardently conservative on national security and foreign policy issues. "We Do Defense (far) Right!" it proclaims:

Are you preparing for the inevitable U.S. v. ChiCom War? Are you praying every night for the employment of Ballistic Missile Defense? Do you think nuclear weapons are important for American security? Do you think MAD is a trashy liberal theory? Are you educated by great professors with real life experience?

Then this is the place for you.


Flanagan has also blogged for the conservative Pelican Institute until as recently as this month. In one post last month, he highlighted criticisms directed at Landrieu.

Flanagan's father, William Flanagan, is currently the acting US Attorney for Louisiana's western district. But because Flanagan was arrested in the state's eastern district, his father will not oversee his prosecution.

The New Orleans newspaper NOLA.com, which first broke the news, reported that "one of the four was arrested with a listening device in a car blocks from the senator's offices." The FBI's affidavit noted that Flanagan and Basel were in the building with O'Keefe, and a federal law enforcement official confirmed to AP that Dai was the one in the car.

The New York Times pointed out that "[t]he [FBI] affidavit did not accuse the men of trying to tap the phones, or describe in detail what they did to the equipment." But the optics of the situation have led to suspicions that bugging Landrieu's phones was their intention.

Although Robert Flanagan's Facebook page has been removed, the other three all list each other as "friends" on the social networking site.

All four of the men arrested in the plotMonday have well-documented conservative ties, The Associated Press revealed. Three of the suspects wrote for conservative publications while in college, and Flanagan has written for the national Pelican Institute.

Flanagan's blog, flanaganreport.com, has also been deleted, but some of its content can still be found in Google's archives. In one post, Flanagan criticized former vice president Dick Cheney.

Joseph Basel was listed by the University of Minnesota, Morris in 2005 as one of its fifteen "College Republicans."

The publications O'Keefe and Basel wrote for while in college allegedly received money from the nonprofit education foundation The Leadership Institute.

"Leadership Institute Vice President David Fenner said in a phone interview this morning that the group had 'informal, above-board relationships' with both James O'Keefe and Joseph Basel when they were college students," Talking Points Memo reported Wednesday.

Landrieu's office released the following statement on the incident, according to NPR:

Because the details of yesterday's incident are part of an ongoing investigation by federal authorities, our office cannot comment at this time.

The community activist group ACORN slammed O'Keefe, who angered them after unveiling their ostensibly dodgy practices. "Couldn't have happened to a more deserving soul," the group posted on its Twitter feed.

The incident "is further evidence of his disregard for the law in pursuit of his extremist agenda," ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis told AP in a statement.

Additional research provided by Ron Brynaert