As somebody who was fairly intimately familiar with this exactly situation and how you would do it if you were actually going to do it.....
There is virtually no chance these amateurs were going to ‘wiretap’ anything. If you’ve ever seen a Federal building PBX closet, you’d know that unless you actually DID work for the phone company at one point and you actually had the correct equipment (like one of those oversized orange handset looking things which alligator clips on it). For even an office the size of Landreiu, there could be a dozen phone lines alone and all the other lines on that floor will probably be in the same box because they were wired decades ago.
The only way to find the Senators actual phone lines if you were actually going to the PBX would be to attach your handset onto random lines and listen to them to hear if the conversations were coming from her office. Or you would have to originate a tone from the phone company on the offending main line and then tap that one (which would require actual phone company employees).
On this completely unworkable notion that these four kids are going to be charged with felon entrance into a Federal bldg by false pretense has one gigantic hole in it. You HAVE TO BE INTENT ON COMMITTING A FELONY for this charge to be filed. The affi filed by the FBI agent does not indicate that any of the subjects actually confessed to INTENT TO COMMIT A FELONY (as in actual wiretapping).
People who are strippers who pretend to be delivery guys and enter a Federal building only to start stripping and grinding on some unsuspecting birthday girl in a Federal office are no more guilty of this charge. The strippers don’t tell the security guards that they are strippers when they pass through the metal detectors. But they aren’t FELONs and they don’t face 10 years and/or $250,000 in fines.
There is NO WAY IN HELL these charges even make it to a trial. There could be some manufactured misdeamenor charges possible since anything you do on Federal property is a crime if the FBI doesn’t like you (you might beat the rap with a jury but they can torture you until you do).
O’Keefe needs to spend a little more time speaking to actual private investigators and maybe some former FBI agents who did public corruption. There are plenty of ways to have documented this without having gotten close to the line legally.
Yeah, BUT, weren’t two of them wearing phone company jackets? That will complicate things.
Keep your powder dry, O’Keefe is playing out some planned sting. He must have some evidence he wants to present in federal court.