CNN PR Issues Legal Threat to James O’Keefe For Recording Private Meetings, Calls Him Out for Misidentifying Network Executive (UPDATED)
CNN’s public communications department replied to James O’Keefe on Twitter, warning him that his secret recording and planned release of some of the network’s internal editorial calls could have broken the law — and that the company has notified law enforcement.
On Tuesday morning, O’Keefe posted a Tweet that previewed an upcoming release of a recording of an editorial call between CNN President Jeff Zucker and his network’s senior leadership.
More than seven hours later, in that Tweet’s replies, the CNN PR account responded: “Legal experts say this may be a felony. We’ve referred it to law enforcement.”
Legal experts say this may be a felony. We‘ve referred it to law enforcement.
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) December 1, 2020
If O’Keefe did end up breaking the law, it wouldn’t be the first time. In 2010, as part of one of his earlier so-called stings, O’Keefe and three others were arrested and charged with a felony for entering a federal building in New Orleans under false pretenses targeting the office of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu. That charge was ultimately reduced to a single misdemeanor, but O’Keefe was still sentenced to three years probation and forced to do 100 hours of community service plus pay a $1,500 fine.
Update: 9:55 p.m. EST: After O’Keefe began releasing audio recordings, he said one of them included the voice of Marcus Mabry, CNN’s Vice President of Global Programming, complaining about the “naked racism” of Fox News prime time host Tucker Carlson.
But, in fact, the voice was of CNN’s General Counsel, David Vigilante, which prompted the network’s PR account to sarcastically poke at O’Keefe again, for such a basic journalism mistake. “We’re certain you’ll want to correct the record and apologize to the Black executive for assuming he was the voice raising concerns over white supremacy,” they wrote on Twitter in reply to the audio recording.
James & Tucker, the voice you ID’d tonight as “Marcus Mabry” is actually GA resident & CNN General Counsel David Vigilante. We’re certain you’ll want to correct the record and apologize to the Black executive for assuming he was the voice raising concerns over white supremacy.
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) December 2, 2020
While CNN PR claimed Carlson covered the James O’Keefe clips, Fox News pointed out in a statement that is wrong.
“Tucker Carlson’s opening segment had nothing to do with the Project Veritas clip of CNN’s editorial call. He did not misidentify Marcus Mabry,” Fox News said.
