Filmmaker Who Targeted ACORN Arrested in Alleged Senate Phone Scheme

Fox News ^ | 01/25/10

[BuckeyeTexan]

Developing ... James O'Keefe, of ACORN sting video fame, and three other suspects have been arrested by the FBI for interfering with LA Senator Landrieu's phone system on federal property.

[BuckeyeTexan]

Here's an executive summary for those who haven't read the FBI affidavit.

• O'Keefe was waiting in Senator Landrieu's office on the 10th floor.
• Flanagan and Basel enter dressed and posing as telephone repairmen.
• O'Keefe positions his cell phone to record Flanagan and Basel.
• Flanagan and Basel ask for access to a phone, which they are given. They manipulate the phone's handset.
• Flanagan and Basel then ask for access to the main telephone system closet.
• Flanagan and Basel are directed to the main GSA (U.S. General Services Administration) office on the same floor.
• Flanagan and Basel are asked to produce appropriate identification.
• Flanagan and Basel claim to have left their ID in their vehicle.

The affidavit doesn't say when Flanagan and Basel were arrested or where O'Keefe was and what he was doing when Flanagan and Basel left Senator Landrieu's office for the main GSA office.

After Flanagan and Basel admitted to not being telephone repairmen and entering Senator Landrieu's office under false pretenses, a subsequent investigation found that O'Keefe and Dai worked with Flanagan and Basel "in the planning, coordination, and preparation of the operation."

O'Keefe admitted to working with Flanagan and Basel in the preparation of the operation. He further admitted to recording Flanagan and Basel in Senator Landrieu's office. He did not admit to entering onto federal property under false pretenses.

The FBI believes O'Keefe (and Dai) aided and abetted Flanagan and Basel in the operation and that the operation's purpose was to willfully and maliciously interfere with a telephone system operated and controlled by the GSA.

[paulycy]

There is WAY MORE to this story.

I'm on his side and hope he's innocent. But he should know that spying on a Senator is *much* different from spying on the ACORN scum.

I hope he didn't bite off more than he can chew. We'll have to see if he was set up or he just blew it (and earned 10 years of jail time.) :0/

[P-Marlowe]

I suspect after the government has made O'Keefe and his friends spend a considerable amount of money in legal fees, this will just eventually all go away.

Eric Holder is the Attorney General.

Need I say more?

[OldDeckHand]

"Alas, all the "telephone equipment" is kept securely within the perimeter of the office environment, and not out there in an open wire room in the hall, or down in the basement."

Every government office building I have ever worked in - and I have worked in plenty in 24 years - has had at least one electronics closet that contained the office's phone equipment and usually the computer servers/network equipment as well.

Sometimes that was in a converted closet if it was an older building, or a special room with a special kind of flooring if it was a newer building and sometime it was indeed in the basement. But, the phone equipment was never "perimeter of the office environment". If you're familiar with another setup, you must be referring to a branch of government that I'm not familiar.

[BuckeyeTexan]

I think that when Flanagan and Basel were asked for ID and claimed to have left it in their vehicle that they were probably detained for questioning.

The FBI affidavit says that a subsequent investigation found that O’Keefe was involved. So I don’t know that anyone was necessarily tracking O’Keefe. When his accomplices got caught, he was then questioned and arrested. It doesn’t say if O’Keefe was arrested in the Senator’s office or somewhere else after the fact.

[OldDeckHand]

"But one question came immediately to mind...who knew he was there that day..could it be that this guy was being tracked, at that they knew that was his plan, so waited for him to show up and nabbed him?"

No one "knew he was there" that day. He came in, the staffer got suspicious and the kids left. The FBI was called, they did some investigating and the next day, they had the US Marshalls effect arrest on the four suspects. No one was waiting for them to show up, and they weren't "nabbed" at the scene.

[BuckeyeTexan]

Yep, there’s ALWAYS a phone closet.

[Quickgun]

Perhaps this federal prosecutor is /was using the young folks for a sting of his own?

[MadelineZapeezda]

Me thinks James did this before and has something up his sleeve.....let’s hope!

[sissyjane]

Eric Shawn on FOX just said if convicted, he may be sentenced to ten years. Read some lame statement from his attorney, that he is basically a good kid.

[meyer]

Wonder what they thought they’d hear/find in Landrieu’s office?

The sounds of the ultimate 'lady of the evening' earning her $300 million.

[Quickgun]

Perhaps this federal prosecutor is /was using the young folks for a sting of his own?

[Eric Blair 2084]

So what, someone made O'Keefe and his co-conspirators wear telephone repairman/technician's clothes and forced them to make entry into Landrieu's office? Not likely. If you read the affidavit, it's quite clear that they were up to some monkey-business. Does that monkey-business rise to the level of a federal crime? Well, if they were indeed manipulating the phone system, or attempting to gain access to a secured area where phone equipment is located, they're going to need some competent counsel.

I agree.

College pranks are funny. Videotaping Loquetha the ACORN worker whipping out a W-9 form for an Ecuadorian underage prostitute ring was priceless.

Breaking into Federal property under false pretenses to access confidential information from a US Senator...not so funny....

The only defense that could save their hide is there has to be some really sinister plot in the national interest that they were trying to expose...like Landrieu is a stealth al Quaeda agent who was planning to blow up the set of Sesame Street or American Idol. Unlikely.

Anything short of that...and they are toast.

[Lets Be Frank]

Maybe I should have had a clue about this guys amount of savy when he showed up at one sting with a ridiculous pimp getup that looked more like Halloween. (but then again..it fooled the acorns)

[guido911]

I don’t get this. His admissions are that he was part of an operation and he was on government grounds under false pretenses. Sh!t, he admitted to those offenses repeatedly during the ACORN stings. Seriously, false pretenses? He dressed as a pimp and his “girlfriend” was a prostitute trying to get tax help and in one case suggested to ACORN they were going to bring in sex slaves. Being on property under false pretenses was exactly what the ACORN stings were all about.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Possibly. We just know next to nothing at this point in time.

[muawiyah]

You take a typical large government building. It will have public corridors that take you to main entrances to "offices" or office area complexes within the building. In the DC area almost everything is done as "office landscaping", but the public corridors are still there. Even in older buildings you will no longer find an equipment closet with access to a public corridor.

Since 9/11/01 many changes have been made everywhere in government buildings.

Equipment of every kind will be within the lockable perimeter of the office complex. That is, you walk into the reception area, and even if the office area has a rear entrance, or wraps around a corner of the building, that reception area and the other exits/entrances are lockable, and most are usually locked except for exiting 24/7.

A server room will be part of a larger internal installation that is quite lockable, and probably is. The room with the PBX is required to be lockable, and it's required to be WITHIN the area of control of the responsible authority.

USPS provides more buildings than does GSA, and they operate with a set of standard guidelines that have been reviewed for all security needs by people with expertise in that area. GSA provides yet other buildings and they do the same. DOD has many facilities, and they provide additional security requirements which include "blast zones".

The various federal agencies that manage federal buildings of all kinds draw from the same agreed upon and reviewed security standards.

[muawiyah]

Just like to note that most of the federal offices in the Chicago area are quite out of date and the Executive Office Building where you work is SECURE at the perimeter of the building. These guys couldn't have gotten in without an INVITATION.

If you work at Justice Department, you're in one of a dozen buildings, and you'd be surprised how they actually control entrance, exit and protection of equipment of value.

[P-Marlowe]

Eric Shawn on FOX just said if convicted, he may be sentenced to ten years. Read some lame statement from his attorney, that he is basically a good kid.

It certainly does not look good. "He's basically a good kid" is a far cry from "He is innocent of any wrong doing".

Sounds like they are already ready to plea bargain.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

i agree...he is very young and maybe screwed up by taking a risk and not preparing for it....on the other hand, it could be a frame up..too early to tell.