Judge Rules O’Keefe’s Schemes Can Be Portrayed to Jury as ‘Political Spying’ – The Daily Beast
A federal judge has dealt conservative figure James OKeefe a legal blow, ruling that his groups undercover operations against a Democratic consulting firm can fairly be described at an upcoming million-dollar trial as political spying.
Making matters worse for the right-wing star, the judge cited OKeefes own book as evidence against him.
In 2016, Allison Maass, an operative for OKeefes Project Veritas group, took an internship at Democratic firm Democracy Partners under a fake name. While staffers at the firm thought Maass was working to elect Democrats in the 2016 campaign, she was secretly recording them and relaying undercover video and notes on the group to Project Veritas. Project Veritas eventually released the video, prompting Democracy Partners founder Robert Creamer to step back from the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Creamer and Democracy Partners sued Project Veritas in 2017 over the sting. Now, with the trial set for December, OKeefes lawyers wanted to preemptively prevent the plaintiffs lawyers from describing Project Veritass work in court as political spying.
In an Oct. 14 court opinion, though, U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman ruled that its reasonable to describe OKeefes groups actions in that way.
Political spying is a fair characterization of the undisputed facts of this case, Friedman, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote.
OKeefes lawyers had argued that Project Veritas operates as journalists, an argument that would likely make it easier at trial for Project Veritas to claim their activities were protected under the First Amendment. But much of the evidence that Project Veritass operation could be called spying came from OKeefes own 2018 book, American Pravda.
Describing the Democracy Partners sting in his book, OKeefe wrote that Maass worked under an assigned role and compared her to a spy working in the Soviet Unionliterally living out her character in Americas capital city much as Americans overseas did in Moscow during the Cold War.
As if to make the comparison between Maass and notorious political spying operations clearer, OKeefe wrote in his book that Maass devised a way to hide her recording device from metal detectors and even compared Maass to the Watergate burglars.
The last time operatives got caught stealthily entering the DNC headquarters, those headquarters were in the Watergate complex, OKeefe wrote. Remember that kerfuffle?
This lawsuit is further exposing the lows to which Creamer will stoop to attack the first amendment, this time by calling undercover reporting political spying, Project Veritas said in a statement. Creamers actions are antithetical to a free press and should be denounced by all reporters.
In another setback for OKeefe, Friedman also ruled that lawyers for Democracy Partners can introduce proof of ties between Project Veritas, and Donald Trump.
The evidence includes OKeefe meeting with Trump during the 2016 campaign and his appearance at Trumps election-night party and could be offered to prove that Project Veritas staffers operated as political operatives, instead of journalists. The plaintiffs also won the right to introduce video of anti-Muslim activist and then-Project Veritas employee Laura Loomer hitting a piata shaped like Hillary Clinton as evidence.
Editor's note: The headline on this story has been corrected to reflect the language in the judges order
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Judge Rules O'Keefe's Schemes Can Be Portrayed to Jury as 'Political Spying' - The Daily Beast