James O’Keefe’s Latest Project Alleges Journalistic Corruption; Targets HuffPost’s Sam Stein

James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas appear to have a new institution in their sights with a new hidden camera video project titled “To Catch a Journalist: Part One.” The video is first in what appears to be series, and is superficially successful in raising questions about Jeff Keefe, a Rutgers professor who appears to offer to kill an economic report if it would help defeat an anti-collective bargaining vote in Ohio. O’Keefe also aims to smear The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein, but falls far short of the mark.

Keefe is currently an assistant professor at Rutgers University who, according to his profile, specializes in “state and local government public employee compensation, employment levels, dispute resolution, particularly interest arbitration, health benefits, and pensions.”

Via a recorded telephone conversation with someone described by O’Keefe as a “Project Veritas decoy,” Keefe appears to offer to kill an economic study if the research were to be unfavorable to the underwriter, the “Economic Policy Institute.”

O’Keefe specifically alleges that the Rutgers professor offered to kill “an economic study in a pay-for-play deal in order to defeat SB5,” which is an Ohio anti-collective bargaining bill. The video depicts a conversation that appears to support this allegation, which Keefe later defends to Christian Hartsock, a partner of O’Keefe’s in Project Veritas. While the video looks damning, given O’Keefe’s track-record of questionable editing (regarding his initial Pimp/ACORN stunt and his NPR funding scam), a healthy dose skepticism is never a bad idea.

The second part of the undercover video alleges that Sam Stein — who is a well respected White House correspondent for Huffington Post and frequent contributor to MSNBC’s Morning Joe — is guilty of getting his sources drunk so that he can get good stories from them. Stein refutes the story, and tweeted his followers, shortly after receiving the call from O’Keefe, “James O’Keefe just called to ask if i get my sources drunk in order to get their scoops… I’m usually drunk. not my sources though.”

It should be noted that O’Keefe, in confronting Stein about the alleged drinking, isn’t himself completely honest in his question. Stein’s journalism professor said that Stein “goes out drinking at night with people,” never saying that he “gets sources drunk.”

“Saying that Sam goes out drinking with sources in DC is like saying he goes out breathing with them,” said Tommy Christopher, a colleague of Stein’s, and a frequent critic of James O’Keefe. “People let their guard down in social situations. Stop the presses!”

O’Keefe’s modus operandi is to bait criticism with an edited initial release, then put out what he claims are “unedited” transcripts and clips, which often refute some of the criticisms, but still don’t add up to what they’re presented as. It appears, though, that whatever thread he’s pulling on with EPI, his gratuitous smear of Sam Stein could seriously undermine his findings. We shall wait for Part 2 to see what emerges.

Until then…watch the video below, courtesy of Project Veritas: