TPM has a good post about this business, worth reprinting at least in part:
O'Keefe was allegedly using his cell phone to film the attempt to bug Landrieu's office as it happened. And that's not too smart since that amounts to filming your accomplices in the process of committing a felony.
And it goes beyond that. Let's say their 'operation' was a complete success. And let's say they got something really juicy off of Sen. Landrieu's tapped phone line. What exactly were they going to do with it?
The moment you surface either transcripts of the recordings of any calls, you immediately become the target of a federal investigation. And believe me, shield laws -- or shield practices that amount to court deference -- ain't what they used to be. But they were never going to protect you from an investigation into bugging the office of a United States senator. Nor should it.
Now, one might speculate that they were going to use the bug to get leads that they would then report out and surface by other means. But, frankly, to put it mildly that does not sound like the James O'Keefe MO. And filming the bugging as it happened definitely suggests they didn't plan on keeping the thing a secret.
So again, what were they thinking?
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