Patterico has the basic story on James O’Keefe’s arrest in Senator Mary Landrieu’s office yesterday. The newspaper theme has been that they were trying to wire tap her phones but this is nonsense. The FBI affidavit (pdf) contains the key to what was going on. Basel (one of the four arrested) asked for the phone that is the main public line to the office. He and Flanagan (another arrestee) both tried to call this telephone, which was not in use at the time, and were unable to get through. They used their cell phones and got (presumably) busy signals even though the phone was not in use at the time. Why is this significant?
Another story about a protest provides the background.
“We were stunned to learn that so many phone calls to Sen. Landrieu have been unanswered and met with continuous busy signals,” Perkins said. “We asked them to call their senators. They could get through to Sen. Vitter, but not Sen. Landrieu.”
“Our lines have been jammed for weeks, and I apologize,” Landrieu said in interview after giving a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday. “But no amount of jamming is going to keep me from supporting a good work for Louisiana and the nation.”
Dwight Hudson of Central said many of his fellow Baton Rouge Tea Party members had phoned Landrieu’s office unsuccessfully for weeks. “The point is they’re not getting their opinion heard. Maybe that’s why they’re out here today,” he said.
I think what they were doing was trying to prove that the telephone lines to Senator Landrieu’s office had been disabled by her staff so that constituents could not reach the office. They asked to see the telephone closet to check if there had been alterations made to the incoming lines so the caller got a busy signal.
This was a dangerous and foolish stunt. This was a federal building and a Senator’s office. O’Keefe, especially, should have kept far away from anything like this. It will be used by the left to discredit his expose’ of ACORN and that is already underway with great glee.
Anyway, that’s what I think at this stage of the story.
Tags: Congress
Yep. Unfortunately I think he went a step to far on this one and got snagged. It was a stupid stunt.
Well, I saw O’Keefe on Hannity the other night and it seems like we
may not have the entire story yet….
Nevertheless, it was a stupid stunt.
There’s enough fodder out there to risk stepping over the line. Why give more ammo to the left??