By Anthony Pendleton
University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications
Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes is the
latest target of undercover video operator James O’Keefe, who has made a name
for himself by going after Democrats and liberal activists.
On Monday, O’Keefe’s
Project Veritas Action released a
hidden-camera video of Grimes campaign supporters that undercut
Grimes’ strong advocacy of the troubled coal industry. Her campaign said none of the people are on its payroll.
In the nearly five-minute long
video, the Grimes supporters has to say she supports coal because, as Juanita Rodriguez said, “In
Kentucky, if you don’t support the coal industry, you’re dead – politically.”
Rodriguez adds that politics is “a lying game, unfortunately.” The video identifies her as an “operative” of the Warren County Democratic Party in Bowling Green.
Former state auditor Crit Luallen is shown saying that Grimes has “just gotta do what she’s gotta do to get elected.” Luallen
also says “Obama’s regulatory policies have had the impact totally restricting
what coal can do.” She also suggests that the issue shouldn't be so big: “Between the market forces and what he’s already
done, this is not like a big hook hanging over our heads.”
In a telephone interview, Luallen said, “It's my understanding that the campaign has said no one in that video
had been authorized to speak for her. They were volunteers, they were
activists, none of them were paid staff.” She added, “I deeply resent being secretly recorded. And this is a kind of underhanded tactic that is unnecessary in the campaign environment and doesn't serve the positive public discourse that needs to happen in the campaign.”
Luallen said in an email to the Bowling Green
Daily News, “I’ve known Alison a long time and
I know she cares deeply about coal miners, their families and their futures.”
Ziya Smallens, whom the video identifies as a field organizer
at a “Louisville Democratic office,” says in the video, “You can’t be a statewide
politician and condemn coal. You can’t. You’re not gonna win.”
O’Keefe says in the video that he sent his “reporters into the Grimes
campaign,” and to “Grimes campaign offices across the state,” but most if not
all of the locations appear to be offices of the Democratic Party, not the Grimes
campaign.
Asked about that in an interview, O'Keefe said, "That's where her campaign activities are carried out, were in these
offices. So whether they're staffers or campaign workers or officials
associated with the campaign - that's sorta why we used that language."
In an email, Grimes campaign press secretary Charly Norton said,
“None of the individuals in the video are on our staff.”
However, it appears Smallens may have been a member of the
Grimes campaign in the past. On Tuesday, his LinkedIn profile said he was a
field organizer for the campaign. One of the duties Smallens listed was being
in charge of or helping with “training volunteers to organize their own
communities.”
O’Keefe said in a telephone interview that he described Smallens
as a field organizer because “they characterized that they were working for the
campaign, in the capacity as field organizer.”
On Wednesday, Smallens’s LinkedIn profile had been updated
and all mentions of the Grimes campaign had been removed. Less than an hour
after an email was sent to Smallens seeking comment for this story, his profile
had been completely deleted.
No payments to Smallens or another person the video identifies as a “Grimes
field organizer,” Chase Sanders, are listed in payments made by the Grimes campaign in its reports through
June 30. Smallens’ LinkedIn profile said he started work in June. Another campaign-spending
report, for the third quarter, is due Oct. 15.
On Tuesday, Project Veritas Action released a second video, showing Grimes campaign donor Niko Elmaleh of New York City in
a bar, saying of the coal indstry that Grimes will “[expletive] ‘em as soon as
she gets elected.”
After the release of the first video on Monday, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s
campaign spokeswoman, Allison Moore, said in a press release, “The
fact Grimes has not denounced campaign staffers who say she’s anti-coal is just
the latest proof that Obama’s Kentucky candidate is no more interested in
defending this industry than she was the day she lied about raising the subject
at a Harry Reid fundraiser.”
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, is the Senate
majority leader. In 2008, he said “Coal makes us sick.”
In June, Grimes said she would defend the industry at a private fundraiser Reid sponsored for her, but in her 11-minute
speech, she never said the word “coal.” She said afterward that she raised the issue with Reid privately.
Grimes has said that unlike McConnell, she believes in global warming and climate change, "but I think that we have to address, especially, leaving this world in a better place in a balanced manner. We’ve got to keep the jobs that we have here in this state, especially our good coal jobs, fight for them. But we have to diversify our economies in Eastern and Western Kentucky."
On Wednesday morning, after the release
of the second video, the Republican Party of Kentucky released a statement
calling on Grimes to return the money her campaign received from Elmaleh. He donated
$2,600 – the maximum amount for a single election – in June.
O’Keefe says in the video that it is “the
beginning of a nationwide undercover investigation into the upcoming election.”
O’Keefe is the head of Project Veritas Action – a non-profit
“social welfare organization” organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal
Revenue Code. According to the Internal Revenue Service, the main requirement
to be classified as a 501(c)(4) is to “operate
primarily to further the common good and general welfare of the people of the
community.” That has been interpreted to mean that such groups are within the
law if they spend half or less of their money on politics.
O’Keefe first gained fame, and is mainly known, for a series
of hidden-camera videos released in 2009 that helped to bring down the
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. In those videos, ACORN
employees offer advice to O’Keefe and Giles on how to evade tax laws. The video
gained attention because it showed O”Keefe and Giles dressed as a pimp and
prostitute in certain parts. It was discovered nearly a year later that the two
were not in costume in the ACORN offices as originally thought.
Although it took nearly a year to catch O’Keefe’s deceitful
conduct the first time, it took less than a day the second time. O’Keefe and
three others were arrested by the FBI in January 2010 for breaking into
Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office. All four were initially charged with “entering
federal property under false pretenses and with the intent of committing a
felony.” Their sentences were dropped to misdemeanors; O’Keefe served
three years of probation and 100 hours of community service.
