Conservative "Journalists" Busted

Yesterday, James O'Keefe, best known for dressing like a "pimp" and catching ACORN employees on hidden cameras offering advice on how to conceal various illegal acts, and three other "conservative journalists"—Joseph Basel, Stan Dai, and Robert Flanagan, son of William Flanagan, the acting US attorney for the Western District of Louisiana—were arrested and charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purposes of committing a felony, after trying to tap the phones in a district office of Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana).

According to the news release Tuesday and an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Steven Rayes, who is based in New Orleans, Basel and Flanagan attempted to gain access to Landrieu's office Monday while posing as telephone repairmen.

The two men were "each dressed in blue denim pants, a blue work shirt, a light green fluorescent vest, a tool belt and a construction-style hard hat when they entered the Hale Boggs Federal Building," the release noted.

...O'Keefe, who had been waiting in the office before the pair arrived, recorded their actions with a cell phone, said the affidavit by Rayes.

..."This is a very unusual situation and somewhat unsettling for me and my staff," Landrieu said in a statement Tuesday night.

Think Progress notes that "Fox News has been one of the biggest supporters of James O'Keefe," and conservative media figure Andrew Breitbart, who runs the blog Big Government, "which helped make O'Keefe a star and pays him to be a contributor, claims that it had no knowledge of what the four individuals were up to."

Last Thursday, O'Keefe "gave a speech to the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, a libertarian group in New Orleans."

The New Orleans event was promoted with this glowing statement about O'Keefe by the Pelican Institute: "James has been a pioneer in the use of new media to drive these kinds of important stories. He will discuss the role of new media and show examples of effective investigative reporting."

...Robert Flanagan's attorney, J. Garrison Jordan, said he believes his client works for the Pelican Institute. Asked the motivation for the alleged wiretap plot, he said: "I think it was poor judgment. I don't think there was any intent or motive to commit a crime."

Just a silly prank! Let's all chalk it up to boys being boys and call it a day! Because how could anyone expect four men in their 20s to understand the difference between "investigative reporting" and "committing a felony"...? The nerve!

This is all the fault of the liberal media, somehow.