James O’Keefe set out to damage the reputation of The Washington Post, but he ended showcasing their dogged and thorough reporting. This Wednesday, the Project Veritas founder continued inadvertently promoting the integrity of WaPo’s reporters.
A few weeks ago, O’Keefe recruited a woman to approach the Post with false story about Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, claiming that he impregnated her when she was 15-years-old. The plan was to dupe a respected outlet into reporting on false info, thus undermining the accounts of Moore’s accusers. The plan fell apart for a variety of reasons, one reason being that the Post vets its sources thoroughly — another being that the woman, who identified herself as Jaime Phillips, was seen walking into O’Keefe’s offices after The Post’s Stephanie McCrummen confronted her about the inconsistencies in her story.
Needless to say, the Post’s counter-sting has enveloped O’Keefe in a tidal wave of Internet mockery. But that hasn’t stopped him from posting more undercover videos of his group trying to entrap Post reporters — videos that seem to only reinforce the fact that there’s nothing but good journalism and ethics going on over at the legacy news outlet.
O’Keefe posted another undercover “sting” video to Twitter this Wednesday morning, this time “exposing” WaPo’s national security reporter Adam Entous:
Today we show you our second undercover video within @washingtonpost…this time exposing Nat'l Security Director Adam Entous who ADMITS that the Russia story is a "f*cking crap shoot" and "maybe it doesn't exist at all." pic.twitter.com/qeEfk9oCKA
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) November 29, 2017
The nearly two-minute video starts out with a Project Veritas “journalist” asking Entous, “Haven’t you guys been the main paper on the Russia stuff though?” Judging from the video, it’s clear that the conversation had more context that wasn’t being presented, but that didn’t detract from the fact that Entous’s response was reasonable and in line with WaPo’s reporting on the alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
“Our reporting hasn’t taken us to a place where I would be able to say with any confidence that the result of it is going to be the president being guilty of being in cahoots with the Russians,” Entous said. “There’s no evidence of that, that I’ve seen so far.”
The PV journalist then asks the big question: “How do we get the president?”
“I have no idea,” Entous replied. “And frankly, there may not be anything that gets the president.”
This is a sentiment that any sane person who follows the Russia story and reads The Washington Post would agree with. He continues:
“It may just be lower-level people who are compromised by this. We just don’t know. It’s very hard to tell. We just don’t know at this point.”
The PV journalist pressed on, saying, “There has to be something, right?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Entous replied. “It could just be lower-level people being manipulated or manipulating. … It’s a fucking black box.”
Entous added that there hasn’t been any confirmative reporting that demonstrates “secret arrangements” between Russia and the Trump campaign. “We’ve seen flirtation, if you will, between them. But nothing that, in my opinion, would rank as actual collusion. Now that mean it doesn’t exist, it just means we haven’t found it yet.”
And that’s exactly what reporting on Russia and Trump has unveiled: lots of flirting. There’s nothing that Entous says in the video that contradicts the Post’s or any other legacy outlet’s findings on the Russia investigation or the accounts of any of their sources.
Twitter’s reaction to the video says it all:
https://twitter.com/Skidd333/status/935887369974308864
https://twitter.com/kswa1987/status/935889686261846019
https://twitter.com/MILANIATRUMP/status/935882798098825216
My god these are terrible exposés. You've merely uncovered professionalism.
— Letters of Note (@LettersOfNote) November 29, 2017
You are so bad at this, jesus christ.
— Ken Lowery (@kenlowery) November 29, 2017
https://twitter.com/davelozo/status/935896853375279104
Looks like an investigation without leaks and a reporter who's being very clear on what has been confirmed and what hasn't.
— 𝔸𝕟𝕟𝕒𝕓𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕌𝕟𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕖 (@MsMoxyNYC) November 29, 2017
https://twitter.com/SGTUtah/status/935890521733570560
O'Keefe every day pic.twitter.com/EtJOyV0c8M
— Music, Beats, Battlestar Galactica (@thethrillsband) November 29, 2017
Let’s see, you’ve exposed @washingtonpost to being careful in its reporting and not jumping to conclusions. Bravo!
— Crooked Donnie (@vernslawyer) November 29, 2017
https://twitter.com/DebbieRhoden57/status/935888347460964352
Interestingly, there were very few people on the comment thread showing support for Project Veritas’s work. That’s probably because even O’Keefe’s most devoted minions have trouble making a Big Mac out of a nothing-burger.
You can see the entire Twitter thread here.
Featured image via screen grab [Project Veritas]
