MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS – A hero of conservatives who targeted a community-organizing group with ties to President Barack Obama is now accused of orchestrating an attempt to tamper with phone lines at a Democratic U.S. senator’s office inside a federal building.
It’s not clear what James O’Keefe, 25, and three young conservatives were trying to accomplish Monday at the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu, who has been criticized by conservatives for securing more benefits for her state in exchange for her support on health care legislation.
The conservative activist was previously known for posing as a pimp on hidden camera to target the liberal group ACORN. All four have been involved in conservative politics.
State Democrats quickly called the alleged plot a “Louisiana Watergate,” but federal officials have not yet said why the men wanted to interfere with Landrieu’s phones, whether they were successful, or even if the goal was political espionage.
The operation’s style recalled the famous 1972 Watergate break-in at the Democratic Party’s national headquarters, which ballooned into a scandal that consumed Richard Nixon’s presidency and led to his resignation.
A staff member in the office told the FBI that two of the suspects, including the son of an acting U.S. Attorney, wore white hard harts, tool belts and flourescent vests and said they needed to fix a problem with the phone system.
According to an FBI affidavit, O’Keefe was already sitting in the waiting area and recorded the men on his cell phone camera when they walked in.
A federal law enforcement official said one of the suspects was picked up in a car a couple of blocks away with a listening device that could pick up transmissions. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not part of the FBI affidavit.
O’Keefe said only “veritas,” Latin for truth, as he left jail Tuesday with suspects Stan Dai and Joseph Basel, both 24. All declined to comment.
As he got into a cab outside the jail, O’Keefe said, “The truth shall set me free.”
The fourth suspect, Robert Flanagan, 24, was released earlier Tuesday. His father, Bill, is the acting U.S. Attorney based in Shreveport, Louisiana. The father’s office declined to comment.
All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Only Flanagan lives in Louisiana. Basel is from Minnesota; O’Keefe, New Jersey; and Dai, the Washington, D.C.-Virginia area.
“It was poor judgment,” Flanagan’s lawyer, Garrison Jordan, said in a brief interview outside the courtroom. “I don’t think there was any intent or motive to commit a crime.”
Landrieu, a moderate Democrat, was in Washington at the time. She said in a statement Tuesday that the plot was “unsettling” for her and her staff. She said she looked forward to the investigation to learn their motives.
Flanagan recently criticized Landrieu for her vote for the Senate health care bill after negotiating an increase estimated in value at up to $365 million for her state’s funds for Medicaid, the government’s health care program for the poor. Conservatives accused Landrieu of selling her vote but she insisted no “special deals” were made.
“Do not be fooled into believing Landrieu is helping the state of Louisiana,” Flanagan wrote in a Nov. 25 post on the Web site for the Pelican Institute, a Louisiana think tank that promotes the free market and limited government.
Monday’s incident quickly prompted outrage from Democrats and claims of vindication at ACORN, which lost its affiliation with the U.S. Census Bureau and federal funding after the uproar over O’Keefe’s videos.
O’Keefe’s arrest “is further evidence of his disregard for the law in pursuit of his extremist agenda,” ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis said in a statement.
O’Keefe managed to do what Republicans have been trying to for years – hurt the political affiliates of ACORN, which has registered hundreds of thousands of voters in urban and other poor areas of the country.
Using a hidden camera, O’Keefe, posing as a pimp and accompanied by a young woman posing as a prostitute, shot videos in ACORN offices where staffers appeared to offer illegal tax advice and to support the misuse of public funds and illegal trafficking in children.
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Associated Press Writers Kevin McGill in New Orleans, Pete Yost in Washington, Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles and Ben Nuckols in Baltimore contributed to this report.
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Pelican Institute: http://www.pelicaninstitute.org/
BigGovernment.com: http://biggovernment.com/
U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu’s official site: http://landrieu.senate.gov/