James O’Keefe Defends CNN ‘Sex Boat’ Caper And Racial Aspect Of ACORN Pimp Costume

Transcript:

Tommy Christopher: Theres a couple of questions i’ve been meaning to ask you for a long time about some of your older investigations…on the Abbie Boudreau caper — where she was going to get standed on a boat filled of dildos — you said this plan was presented to you and you rejected it.

James O’Keefe: (Long pause) That’s right.

TC: My question is -there’s lots of emails that show people pitching the plan to you, but you haven’t produced any emails that show where you put the kibosh on it, when you said ‘no we weren’t going to do it’- do you have any of those emails?

JO: There are some emails but I think the thing is the thing that was presented to me was disgusting and it wasn’t something that i was going to do. I wasn’t going to do what was in that document.

TC: Why not put out the emails to show that you were disgusted and you weren’t going to put it out ?

JO: I mean, It’s not something that even happened, it’s not something I was planning on doing, so I’m not going to comment any further than that. It didn’t happen! You’re asking me about something that didn’t happen and I wasn’t going to do…

I’m showing you videotape of a professor at Rutgers University who is potentially and apparently willing to engage in a pay for play scheme and that’s what I want to talk about in this phone call, and I’m not going to talk about something I didn’t do and didn’t want to do.

TC: Izzy santa said you were waiting on the dock with a boat full of dildos and we’re taking your word for it that you weren’t, if there’s emails that say you didn’t do that why not produce them?

JO: I’m not commenting on it because its something I wasn’t going to do, and its something I didn’t do that — so I’m not going to comment on things I don’t do and didn’t intend to do when I have a video recording. I mean the truth of it, Tommy, is that people say a lot of things about me.

People say I wiretapped a senator — I mean, to this day, some of allies, some of your friends on Twitter say that I wiretapped a senator, when I have a federal judge and US attorney in writing saying I did not, so the moral of the story is that unless you catch James O’Keefe on tape doing something, and by the way — let me say this — this whole notion that I’m out to do nefarious things — I video tape everything that I do — do you honestly believe that I would do something like that on camera and put it on Youtube?

The whole purpose of my investigative techniques are to videotape myself and my colleagues in the course of exposing something and to publish it, why would I publish myself wiretapping a senator? Okay? Sometimes I use a false pretense — i used false pretenses in this investigation, false pretenses have been used by Dateline and NBC and To Catch a Predator and Primetime Live and 60 Minutes for decades, but this notion that I do all these nefarious things, I think you should think about it logically before you jump to wild conclusions and I’m not going to comment.

TC: I don’t have any questions about the Landrieu thing, you don’t want to talk about the dildo boat.

JO: I’m not commenting on things i didn’t do and didn’t want to do.

TC: In fairness, you talk about how everything’s videotaped, so again if you want people to believe that you weren’t going to do this dildo boat thing why not put out pictures of what was actually on the boat? I mean you admit there’s a boat, there’s a picture of you on a boat, let people decide, you don’t have to answer, it’s just what I wonder…

The other thing I wanted to ask you about the ACORN thing, I asked your friend Christian this a few years ago at CPAC, he didn’t really have an answer for me, so maybe you can answer it. You’ve insisted that the choice of the pimp costume for the ACORN investigations didn’t have a racial component to it and yet you told Sean Hannity that you were surprised that the people at the ACORN office believed you were a pimp because and this is a quote “I’m the whitest guy I know” — if there was no racial component to the suit, then why would you tell Sean Hannity that you were too white to be believed to be a pimp?

JO: I think you need to check your facts on that! I never told Sean Hannity that –I think that was Fox and Friends…

TC: you’re right, it was Fox and Friends.

JO: It was kind of a harmless thing, Jon Stewart and the Daily Show had a clip where he said ‘Oh james you don’t have to say you’re a white guy, you’re wearing your chinchilla costume over your andover uniform.’ I had a blazer and khakis on. It was a harmless comment meant to be you know — it was probably my naiveté — it was one of my first times on TV and it wasn’t meant in that sense. It was maybe trying to be cute, I’m wearing khakis, I’m a thin 25-year-old kid and I’m trying to be a pimp, you know, I don’t think it was meant to be anything like that.

TC: You could see how a person could reasonably think what you were saying there that a white person couldn’t be a pimp, even if that’s not what you meant?

JO: Well, I didn’t consider that because I was just, you know, on live TV wearing a costume — maybe that wasn’t even a good idea to begin with! But you know, we don’t play by the rules, you’re not supposed to go into ACORN dressed as a pimp. You’re supposed to go into ACORN investigating voter fraud and we went in investigating their willingness to help prostitutes.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.