I want to hear their side of the story before I start throwing rocks.
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A conservative activist who has caused problems for the community organizing group ACORN and the son of a federal prosecutor were among four people arrested and accused of trying to interfere with phones at U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office.
Activist James O’Keefe, 25, was already in Landrieu’s New Orleans office Monday when Robert Flanagan and Joseph Basel, both 24, showed up claiming to be telephone repairmen, according to U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s office. Letten says O’Keefe recorded the two with his cell phone.
Once inside the reception area, Flanagan, the son of acting U.S. Attorney Bill Flanagan in Shreveport, and Basel asked for access to the main phone at the reception desk.
After handling the phone, “Flanagan and Basel next requested access to the telephone closet because they needed to perform work on the main telephone system,” Letten’s office said.
The men were directed to another office in the building, they’re accused of again misrepresenting themselves as telephone repairmen.
They were arrested later by the U.S. Marshal’s Service. Details of the arrest were not available. A fourth man, Stan Dai, 24, was also arrested, but Letten’s office said only that he assisted the others in planning, coordinating and preparing the operation.
Federal officials did not say why the men wanted to interfere with Landrieu’s phones or whether they were successful. Landrieu, a moderate Democrat, declined comment Tuesday. She has been in the news recently because she negotiated an increase in Medicaid funds for her state before announcing her support for Senate health care legislation.
An FBI criminal complaint charging the men was unsealed Tuesday.
Well, reading that, it sounds like O’Keefe wasn’t even involved.