James O’Keefe is the famous or infamous (depending on your point of view and whether you believe that the ends justify the means) guerrilla hidden-camera master who sets out to deceive Democrats, liberals and progressives into exposing their evil ways. He is not a journalist. He is an unethical conservative operative who has, though dishonest means, occasionally managed to expose wrongdoing or hypocrisy. He is to an ethics blog what Rice Krispie Squares are to Fine Dining Magazine.
Richard Valdes, a former top staffer with O’Keefe’s oxymoronicly named Project Veritas, reports that O’Keefe assigned an undercover employee to attend a meeting of anti-police violence protesters and to bait them by saying: “Sometimes, I wish I could just kill some of these cops. Don’t you just wish we could have one of the cops right here in the middle of our group?” Presumably he was to secretly record the responses, thus discrediting them.
The undercover agent refused, sending an e-mail to his supervisor Valdes that was copied to O’Keefe. It read,
“I will not say words that will jeopardize my entity, especially when they involve an illegal act of ‘murdering police.’
Valdes claims O’Keefe fired him “because he was unhappy with me for being unwilling to strong-arm the guy.” He is considering a lawsuit for wrongful termination. Valdes is threatening to sue for wrongful termination.
A Veritas spokesman denies the allegations, saying, “Project Veritas would never do anything that we believe would incite violence against police officers. Anyone suggesting otherwise is clearly unfamiliar with our body of work.”
Observations:
1. Anyone “familiar”with the organization’s body of work..
- …would not be surprised at anything it did, no matter how outrageous.
- ….would not believe a spokesperson, since Project Veritas is all about lying.
2. If it didn’t happen, why did the undercover employee think this was his assignment?
3. No ethical individual would work for O’Keefe anyway. What are the damages for being wrongfully terminated from a job you are lucky not to be in any more?
4. I believe Valdes.
Ethics Alarms 
Stuff like this doesn’t advance the conservative cause. The left is anxious to provoke us into stooping to their level like this.
Sad. There is no, not even one tiny bit, of leeway for conservatives to behave this way. If we want things to change we cannot use the opposition’s tactics.
It is fascinating how anything posted to the Internet becomes true even when the wronged party claims to have been given a script yet fails to offer it up as evidence to his words. Not that he should have to, but am I suppose to accept his story just because he says so? Call me skeptical but does the now unemployed staffer have an axe to grind?
Oh, sure. I wouldn’t trust the word of anyone who would work for O’Keefe, for the same reasons that I find the story credible about O’Keefe in this instance. The assignment was unethical, but not more than other PV “stings.”