{"id":89891,"date":"2017-11-27T20:31:01","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T00:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=89891"},"modified":"2017-11-27T20:36:15","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T00:36:15","slug":"project-veritas-goes-after-washpo-gets-caught-okeefe-can-do-much-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=89891","title":{"rendered":"Project Veritas Goes After WashPo, Gets Caught, O&#8217;Keefe Can Do Much Better"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"paywall\">\n<div class=\"inline-content inline-video\">\n<div class=\"wpv-wrap 272c883a-d3af-11e7-9ad9-ca0619edfa05_wrap\">\n<div class=\"wpv-fixed\">\n<div id=\"powa-272c883a-d3af-11e7-9ad9-ca0619edfa05\" class=\"posttv-video-embed powa powa-processed small wpv-sticky\" data-ad-bar=\"1\" data-aspect-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-blurb=\"1\" data-live=\"0\" data-object-id=\"5a1c716ae4b0fc5faac6de33\" data-org=\"wapo\" data-playthrough=\"1\" data-uuid=\"272c883a-d3af-11e7-9ad9-ca0619edfa05\" data-youtube-id=\"K8R6OhorldM\" data-autoinit=\"true\" data-autoinit-ads=\"1\" data-nth-video-on-page=\"0\" data-device-class=\"deskweb\" data-viewable-fired=\"true\">\n<div id=\"powa-272c883a-d3af-11e7-9ad9-ca0619edfa05-powa-pane\" class=\"powa-pane\">\n<div class=\"powa-shot-masthead\">\n<div class=\"powa-shot-title shadow franklin-light\">\u00a0<span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 1em;\">Investigations<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"powa-blurb-wrap powa-blurb inline-video-caption large\">\n<div>\n<div id=\"topper-headline-wrapper\" class=\"col-xs-12 col-sm-8 col-lg-9\">\n<h1 data-pb-field=\"custom.topperDisplayName\">A woman approached The Post with dramatic \u2014 and false \u2014 tale about Roy Moore. She appears to be part of undercover sting operation.<!--more--><\/h1>\n<p>By\u00a0Shawn Boburg,\u00a0Aaron C. Davis\u00a0and\u00a0Alice Crites<br \/>\nThe Washington Post<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/video\/c\/embed\/272c883a-d3af-11e7-9ad9-ca0619edfa05\" width=\"480\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"powa-tease\">Reporter Stephanie McCrummen of The Washington Post, left, interviews Jaime Phillips at a Greek restaurant in Alexandria, Va., on Wednesday.<\/span>\u00a0<span class=\"powa-byline franklin-light\">(Dalton Bennett, Thomas LeGro\/The Washington Post)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>A woman who falsely claimed to The Washington Post that Roy Moore, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Alabama, impregnated her as a teenager appears to work with an organization that uses deceptive tactics to secretly record conversations in an effort to embarrass its targets.<\/p>\n<p>In a series of interviews over two weeks, the woman shared a dramatic story about an alleged sexual relationship with Moore in 1992 that led to an abortion when she was 15. During the interviews, she repeatedly pressed Post reporters to give their opinions on the effects that her claims could have on Moore\u2019s candidacy if she went public.<\/p>\n<p>The Post did not publish an article based on her unsubstantiated account. When Post reporters confronted her with inconsistencies in her story and an Internet posting that raised doubts about her motivations, she insisted that she was not working with any organization that targets journalists.<span style=\"font-size: 12px;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"fsIGXi2Lzz2CAq\" class=\"moat-trackable pb-f-theme-normal pb-f-dehydrate-false pb-f-async-true pb-feature pb-layout-item pb-f-page-newsletter-inLine injected-by-front-end\" data-chain-name=\"no-name\" data-feature-name=\"no-name\" data-feature-id=\"page\/newsletter-inLine\" data-pb-fingerprint=\"0ffYslQwHpA\">\n<div class=\"border-bottom- border-bottom- nl-top-hairline\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-inline-unit codedNewsletter\">\n<div class=\"clear\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">But on Monday morning, Post reporters saw her walking into the New York offices of Project Veritas, an organization that targets the mainstream news media and left-leaning groups. The organization sets up undercover\u00a0\u201cstings\u201d that involve using false cover stories and covert video recordings meant to expose what the group says is media bias.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>James O\u2019Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas who was convicted of a misdemeanor in 2010 for using a fake identity to enter a federal building during a previous sting, declined to answer questions about the woman outside the Project Veritas office, a storefront in Mamaroneck, N.Y., on Monday morning shortly after the woman walked inside.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am not doing an interview right now, so I\u2019m not going to say a word,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/video\/c\/embed\/a664414c-d3af-11e7-9ad9-ca0619edfa05\" width=\"480\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h5><span class=\"powa-tease\">James O\u2019Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, declined to answer questions from The Post.<\/span><span class=\"powa-byline franklin-light\">(Aaron Davis\/The Washington Post)<\/span><\/h5>\n<p>In a follow-up interview, O\u2019Keefe declined to answer repeated questions about whether the woman was employed at Project Veritas. He also did not respond when asked if he was working with Moore, former White House adviser and Moore supporter Stephen K. Bannon, or Republican strategists.<\/p>\n<p>The group\u2019s efforts illustrate the lengths to which activists have gone to try to discredit media outlets for reporting on allegations from multiple women that Moore pursued them when they were teenagers and he was in his early 30s. Moore has denied that he did anything improper.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesman for Moore\u2019s campaign did not immediately respond to a message for comment.<\/p>\n<p>The woman who approached Post reporters, Jaime T. Phillips, did not respond to calls to her cellphone Monday morning. Her car remained in the Project Veritas parking lot for more than an hour.<\/p>\n<p>After Phillips was observed entering the Project Veritas office, The Post made the unusual decision to report her previous off-the-record comments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe always honor \u2018off-the-record\u2019 agreements when they\u2019re entered into in good faith,\u201d said Martin Baron, The Post\u2019s executive editor. \u201cBut this so-called off-the-record conversation was the essence of a scheme to deceive and embarrass us. The intent by Project Veritas clearly was to publicize the conversation if we fell for the trap. Because of our customary journalistic rigor, we weren\u2019t fooled, and we can\u2019t honor an \u2018off-the-record\u2019 agreement that was solicited in maliciously bad faith.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Phillips\u2019s arrival at the Project Veritas office capped a weeks-long effort that began only hours after The Post published an article on Nov.\u00a09 that included\u00a0allegations that\u00a0<a title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/investigations\/woman-says-roy-moore-initiated-sexual-encounter-when-she-was-14-he-was-32\/2017\/11\/09\/1f495878-c293-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html?utm_term=.ca2d4b7a348f\" shape=\"rect\">Moore once initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old named Leigh Corfman<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Post reporter\u00a0<a title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/people\/beth-reinhard\/?utm_term=.66b196b39300\" shape=\"rect\">Beth Reinhard<\/a>, who co-wrote the article about Corfman, received a cryptic email early the next morning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRoy Moore in Alabama .\u2009.\u2009. I might know something but I need to keep myself safe. How do we do this?\u201d the apparent tipster wrote under an account with the name \u201cLindsay James.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The email\u2019s subject line was \u201cRoy Moore in AL.\u201d The sender\u2019s email address included \u201crolltide,\u201d the rallying cry of the University of Alabama\u2019s sports teams, which are nicknamed the Crimson Tide.<\/p>\n<p>Reinhard sent an email asking if the person was willing to talk off the record.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot sure if I trust the phone,\u201d came the reply. \u201cCan we just stick to email?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI need to be confident that you can protect me before I will tell all,\u201d the person wrote in a subsequent email. \u201cI have stuff I\u2019ve been hiding for a long time but maybe it should stay that way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The tipster\u2019s email came amid counterattacks by Moore supporters aimed at The Post and its reporters.<\/p>\n<p>That same day, Gateway Pundit, a conservative site, spread a false story from a Twitter account, @umpire43, that said, \u201cA family friend in Alabama just told my wife that a WAPO reporter named Beth offer her 1000$ to accuse Roy Moore.\u201d The Twitter account, which has a history of spreading misinformation, has since been deleted.<\/p>\n<p>The Post, like many other news organizations, has a strict policy against paying people for information and did not do so in its coverage of Moore.<\/p>\n<p>On Nov.\u00a014, a\u00a0<a title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/politics\/wp\/2017\/11\/14\/alabama-pastor-says-man-posing-as-washington-post-reporter-offered-reward-for-dirt-on-roy-moore\/?utm_term=.d051ed8bf4f4\" shape=\"rect\">pastor in Alabama said he received a voice mail<\/a>\u00a0from a man falsely claiming to be a Post reporter\u00a0and seeking women \u201cwilling to make damaging remarks\u201d about Moore for money. No one associated with The Post made any such call.<\/p>\n<p>In the days that followed the purported tipster\u2019s initial emails, Reinhard communicated with the woman through an encrypted text messaging service and spoke by phone with the person to set up a meeting. When the woman suggested a meeting in New York, Reinhard told her she would have to know more about her story and her background. The woman offered that her real name was Jaime Phillips.<\/p>\n<p>Phillips said she lived in New York but would be in the D.C. area during Thanksgiving week and suggested meeting Tuesday in a shopping mall in Tysons Corner, Va. \u201cI\u2019m planning to do some shopping there so I\u2019ll find a good place to meet before you get there,\u201d Phillips wrote in a message sent via Signal, the encrypted messaging service.<\/p>\n<p>When Reinhard suggested bringing another reporter, Phillips wrote, \u201cI\u2019m not really comfortable with anyone else being there this time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reinhard arrived to find Phillips, wearing a brown leather jacket and with long red hair, already seated in a booth in the restaurant.<\/p>\n<p>The 41-year-old said she had been abused as a child, Reinhard said. Her family had moved often. She said she moved in with an aunt in the Talladega area of Alabama and started attending a church youth group when she met Moore in 1992, the year he became a county judge. She said she was 15. She said they started a \u201csecret\u201d sexual relationship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI knew it wasn\u2019t right, but I didn\u2019t care,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>She said that she got pregnant, that Moore talked her into an abortion, and that he drove her to Mississippi to get it.<\/p>\n<p>In the interview, she told Reinhard that she was so upset she couldn\u2019t finish her salad.<\/p>\n<p>Phillips said she had started thinking about coming forward after the\u00a0<a title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/violence-threats-begging-harvey-weinsteins-30-year-pattern-of-abuse-in-hollywood\/2017\/10\/14\/2638b1fc-aeab-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?utm_term=.6e14c6effffb\" shape=\"rect\">allegations about Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein surfaced<\/a>. Then she said she saw the news about Moore flashing across the television screen while in a break room at her job at a company called NFM Lending in Westchester County, N.Y., Reinhard said.<\/p>\n<p>Phillips also repeatedly asked the reporter to guarantee her that Moore would lose the election if she came forward. Reinhard told her in a subsequent text message that she could not predict what the impact would be. Reinhard said she also explained to Phillips that her claims would have to be fact-checked. Additionally, Reinhard asked her for documents that would corroborate or support her story.<\/p>\n<p>Later that day, Phillips told Reinhard that she felt \u201canxiety &amp; negative energy after our meeting,\u201d text messages show.\u00a0\u201cYou just didn\u2019t convince me that I should come forward,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Reinhard replied, \u201cI\u2019m so sorry but I want to be straight with you about the fact-checking process and the fact that we can\u2019t guarantee what will happen as a result of another story.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Phillips was not satisfied. On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, she suggested meeting with another Post reporter,\u00a0<a title=\"www.washingtonpost.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/people\/stephanie-mccrummen\/?utm_term=.82f007923db8\" shape=\"rect\">Stephanie McCrummen<\/a>, who co-wrote the initial article about Corfman. \u201cI\u2019d rather go to another paper than talk to you again,\u201d Phillips told Reinhard.<\/p>\n<p>Back at the newsroom, Reinhard became concerned about elements of Phillips\u2019s story. Phillips had said she lived in Alabama only for a summer while a teenager; but the cellphone number Phillips provided had an Alabama area code. Reinhard called NFM Lending in Westchester County, but they said a person named Jaime Phillips did not work there.<\/p>\n<p>Alice Crites, a Post researcher who was looking into Phillips\u2019s background, found the document that strongly reinforced the reporters\u2019 suspicions: a Web page for a fundraising campaign by someone with the same name. It was on the website GoFundMe.com under the name Jaime Phillips.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-27-at-7.35.11-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-27-at-7.35.11-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"654\" height=\"526\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-89895\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-27-at-7.35.11-PM.png 654w, https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-27-at-7.35.11-PM-300x241.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m moving to New York!\u201d the May\u00a029 appeal said. \u201cI\u2019ve accepted a job to work in the conservative media movement to combat the lies and deceipt of the liberal MSM. I\u2019ll be using my skills as a researcher and fact-checker to help our movement. I was laid off from my mortgage job a few months ago and came across the opportunity to change my career path.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a March posting on its Facebook page, Project Veritas said it was seeking 12 new \u201cundercover reporters,\u201d though the organization\u2019s operatives use methods that are eschewed by mainstream journalists, such as misrepresenting themselves.<\/p>\n<p>A posting for the \u201cjournalist\u201d job on the Project Veritas website that month warned that the job\u00a0\u201cis not a role for the faint of heart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The job\u2019s listed goal:\u00a0\u201cTo adopt an alias persona, gain access to an identified person of interest and persuade that person to reveal information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It also listed tasks that the job applicant should be able to master, including:\u00a0\u201cLearning a script,\u201d\u00a0\u201cPreparing a background story to support your role,\u201d\u00a0\u201cGaining an appointment or access to the target of the investigation,\u201d and\u00a0\u201cOperating concealed recording equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Project Veritas, founded in 2010, is a tax-exempt charity that says its mission is to \u201cinvestigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud and other misconduct.\u201d It raised $4.8\u00a0million and employed 38 people in 2016, according to its public tax filing. It also had 92 volunteers.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Keefe\u2019s criminal record has caused the charity problems in some states. Mississippi and Utah stripped the group of a license to raise money in those states because it failed to disclose O\u2019Keefe\u2019s conviction on state applications, records show.<\/p>\n<p>Also working at Veritas is former television producer Robert J. Halderman, who was sentenced to six months in jail in 2010 after he was accused of trying to blackmail late-night host David Letterman. Halderman was with O\u2019Keefe outside the Project Veritas offices Monday as a reporter tried to ask about Phillips\u2019s role with the organization.<\/p>\n<p>Because Jaime Phillips is a relatively common name, it wasn\u2019t a certainty that the GoFundMe page that Crites found was created by was the same woman who approached The Post. But there was another telling detail, in addition to the name. One of two donations listed on the page was from a person whose name that matched her daughter\u2019s, according to public records.<\/p>\n<p>McCrummen agreed to meet Phillips that afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>Phillips suggested meeting somewhere in Alexandria, Va., saying she was shopping in the area. Post videographers accompanied McCrummen, who brought a printout of the fundraising page to the interview.<\/p>\n<p>Again, Phillips had arrived early and was waiting for McCrummen, her purse resting on the table. When McCrummen put her purse near Phillips\u2019s purse to block a possible camera, Phillips moved hers.<\/p>\n<p>The Post videographers sat separately, unnoticed, at an adjacent table.<\/p>\n<p>Phillips said she didn\u2019t want to get into the details of what she had said happened between her and Moore.<\/p>\n<p>She said she wanted McCrummen to assure her that the article would result in Moore\u2019s defeat, according to a recording.\u00a0McCrummen instead asked her about her story regarding Moore.<\/p>\n<p>Phillips complained that President Trump had endorsed Moore.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo my whole thing is, like, I want him to be completely taken out of the race .\u2009.\u2009. \u201d she said. \u201cAnd I really expected that was going to happen, and now it\u2019s not. So, I don\u2019t know what you think about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McCrummen asked Phillips to verify her identity with a photo identification. Phillips provided a Georgia driver\u2019s license.<\/p>\n<p>McCrummen then asked her about the GoFundMe page.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a process of doing background, checking backgrounds and this kind of thing, so I wanted to ask you about one thing,\u201d McCrummen said, pulling out a copy of the page and reading from it. \u201cSo I just wanted to ask you if you could explain this, and I also wanted to let you know, Jaime, that this is being recorded and video recorded.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOkay,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cUm, yeah, I was looking to take a job last summer in New York, but it fell through,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cYeah, it was going to be with the Daily Caller, but it ended up falling through, so I wasn\u2019t able to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When asked who at the Daily Caller interviewed her, Phillips said,\u00a0\u201cKathy,\u201d pausing before adding the last name,\u00a0\u201cJohnson.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Paul Conner, executive editor of the Daily Caller, said Monday that no one with the name Kathy Johnson works for the publication and that he has no record of having personally interviewed Phillips. Conner later said in email that he had asked other top editors at the Daily Caller and the affiliated Daily Caller News Foundation about Phillips.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNone of us has interviewed a woman by the name Jaime Phillips,\u201d Conner wrote.<\/p>\n<p>At the Alexandria restaurant on Wednesday, Phillips also told The Post that she had not been in contact with the Moore campaign. As the interview ended, Phillips told McCrummen she was not recording the conversation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think I probably just want to cancel and not go through with it at this point,\u201d Phillips said at Souvlaki Bar shortly before ending the interview.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not going to answer any more questions,\u201d she said. \u201cI think I\u2019m just going to go.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She picked up her coat and bag, returned her drink to the front counter and left the restaurant.<\/p>\n<p>By 7\u00a0p.m. the message on the\u00a0<a title=\"web.archive.org\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20171122195050\/http:\/www.gofundme.com\/JaimeToNewYork\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" shape=\"rect\">GoFundMe page<\/a>\u00a0was gone, replaced by a new one.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCampaign is complete and no longer active,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas LeGro and Dalton Bennett contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/investigations\/a-woman-approached-the-post-with-dramatic--and-false--tale-about-roy-moore-sje-appears-to-be-part-of-undercover-sting-operation\/2017\/11\/27\/0c2e335a-cfb6-11e7-9d3a-bcbe2af58c3a_story.html?utm_term=.55667506ffd8\">http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/investigations\/a-woman-approached-the-post-with-dramatic&#8211;and-false&#8211;tale-about-roy-moore-sje-appears-to-be-part-of-undercover-sting-operation\/2017\/11\/27\/0c2e335a-cfb6-11e7-9d3a-bcbe2af58c3a_story.html?utm_term=.55667506ffd8<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0Investigations A woman approached The Post with dramatic \u2014 and false \u2014 tale about Roy Moore. She appears to be part of undercover sting operation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}