Exclusive: James O’Keefe Defends Tactics Used To Discredit Rutgers Professor

Transcript:

TC: You were talking about providing recordings… I read Sam’s report, what he was reporting on was apparently these folks at EPI contacted him to let him know that you were investigating them, so according to his report, there were conversations with two other EPI officials wherein your decoy tried to get them to say something and they wouldn’t bite. Are you going to publish those recordings as well?

JO: Well, we have published — this is the first part of a series, so we publish one part at a time we have posted the full uncut recording of jeff keefes — it’s like a 13 minute phone call — where he does reference Larry Mishel and Amy Hanauer, two individuals that sam stein contacted– he actually Jeff Keefe implicates the EPI in this phone call. He says in this recording. ‘Oh yeah, he can kill it. They can kill it ‘. He gives me their names. So we will be releasing a multi-part series. As you know Tommy, journalists are not friendly to me, and I’ve been through this a number of times, they go through every effort to try to cover up what I uncover, they’ve tried to sabotage my findings, so of course I’m going to be as transparent as possible. But this is a multi-part investigation

TC: James, you said it was you on the phone call with Jeff Keefe?

JO: No, that’s one of the citizen journalists I work with.

TC: So you’re saying that people try to cover up what you say, but you’re presenting a report where Jeff Keefe makes allegations about these two people, and you seem to have information from their own lips that disputes that, and yet you’re covering that up. Why? Why not let both sides of the story out?

JO: Like I said, this is a multipart investigation, okay? I think if you’re going to ask that question, I’ll answer that question when you ask Sam Stein why in all of his reporting prowess, and a Pulitzer Prize winner at Columbia University says he’s such a great reporter, how come he neglected to find out information — everyone tells me James, your tactics are unethical (crosstalk)

…but why does it take a citizen journalists in order to find out apparently what we’ve uncovered is that an academic professor at Rutgers university who’s willing to kill research in a pay to play scheme — that’s a big deal — and when you have the White House correspondent for the Huffington post covering that story and is unable to find out that information, but we are — I think that’s a story, and I think that says something about the state of journalism today in America.

TC: James, you keep talking about journalism, but you’ve got this guy Keefe making allegations about these people and you have statements from these people that you’re withholding. Do you think that’s fair? Do you think that’s journalistically fair to do that? You’re saying it’s a multipart series, but if I put out a story that said so-and-so says James O’Keefe is a pedophile, and I have you on tape saying you’re not but I don’t put that out — is that fair?

JO: I’ll will say it’s a multipart investigation…

TC: Is it fair for me to do that?

JO: …Sam Stein quoted these individuals in his article saying in the video, which I by the way included Sam Stein’s piece… he quotes saying they were trying to bait us into saying ‘kill the study’ — so Amy Hanauer’s statement is quoted in our video from — she’s from policy matters, i think — I do cite the huffington post report in this article from Sam Stein’s perspective.

TC: so you said this is an ongoing series and there are other journalists you’re targeting?

JO: This is an ongoing series …it’s not just EPI and the Huffington Post and the Columbia Journalism School. We are launching a multipart investigation into journalists — some of it may be considered corrupt, other parts might just be considered revealing — media strategies that journalists use to elect politicians – these are journalists that Americans would assume would be like neutral or — some of them are Pulitzer Prize winners, which is remarkable to me. So we’ll be rolling this out over the next few days -or maybe a week or two – rolling out this multi-part investigation into journalists at the highest levels.

TC: Care to drop any names on us?

JO: I couldn’t do that.

TC Just one?

JO: I can’t give you any more than you’ve already seen, but you will see award winning journalists that everyone knows about — all the media insiders follow — you’re going to see some people talk about some strategies that help certain politicians, to help certain movements, and this is just part one.

TC: On the subject of Jeff Keefe — What exactly is his relationship to EPI – is he an employee of EPI?

JO: What I’ve gathered in our research–it seems to be like EPI is like a speakers bureau and they have speakers at college campuses and those professors are hired to do research — apparently through EPI — so when we contacted Jeff Keefe he told us they’d kill the study — it seemed to be like a speakers bureau arrangement, so we contacted him, we were interested in him doing research for us and he said talk to my agent — you can listen to that entire 13 minute recording at projectveritias.com

This post has been updated with an additional statement from EPI’s Jody Franklin.

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