Original piece was published by Canyon News on October 28.
Transcription:
Similar to WikiLeaks, right wing political activist investigative group Project Veritas, who is famous for its undercover investigations, has released new videos claiming the Democratic National Committee has rigged elections. Project Veritas says it’s priority is to “Investigate and expose corruption, dishonest, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions in order to achieve a more ethical and transparent society.”
In the past, James O’Keffe has released videos on sting operations against National Public Radio (NPR), and Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) which were controversial. Many are critical of these new content because of O’Keffe’s history with editing out critical moments of the aforementioned operation videos. O’Keffe has been convicted in the past for misconduct related to an operation to expose Senator Mary Landrieu. Reports have also shown that Donald Trump donated 10,000 dollars to Project Veritas on May 13, 2015.
This new series released by Project Veritas on Tuesday, 18 October has created a stir at the Democratic National Committee.
These three videos contain controversial statements by various democratic operatives which have led to the firing of Scott Foval of Americans United for Change and the resignation of Bob Creamer of Democracy Partners; both of whom are affiliated with the Democratic National Committee. In the tapes, Foval claimed to place citizens wearing controversial slogans, such as shirts which approve of abortion, to Trump rallies knowing that these messages could create violent responses.
““You remember the Iowa state fair thing where Scott Walker grabbed the sign out of the dude’s hand and then the dude kind of gets roughed up right in front of the stage right there on camera?” Foval asks. “That was all us. The guy that got roughed up is my counterpart who works for Bob.””
The Clinton administration and the DNC deny the inciting violence at Trump events. Creamer released a statement saying his organization, Democratic Partners, “have only ever engaged in legal and nonviolence methods to demonstrate how Donald Trump is unfit.”
“We condemn violence and election tampering in all forms” said Democratic Partners.
The second Project Veritas video, called “Rigging the Election” published content of Creamer describing how to commit voter fraud.
“We have mentally ill people that we pay to do shit” Foval said.
“We manipulated the vote with money and action.” He later added.
Foval also discussed how to move voters into swing states in order to win key elections. He stated that it was simple to avoid conspiracy changes as long as the voters were sent separately and not in one large bus or any form of joint transport.
“You can prove conspiracy if there’s a bus. If there are cars it’s much harder to prove” said Foval. “You have them drive their POVs (Personally Owned Vehicles)…Or you have them drive rentals.”
“There’s this thing called Used Car Auctions” he added.
In the video, Foval then mentions Bob Creamer, who in 2006 was convicted (in an unrelated incident) of tax evasion and bank fraud, and claimed that Creamer “comes up with a lot of these ideas.”
The video is edited and contains statements from various people. The next segment jumps to Creamer stating that he is going to contact people who are most involved in Hispanic voter registration. The timing and placement of the segment implies that Creamer was intending to initiate the voter fraud which Foval outlined in the video.
“My fear is that someone would decide that this was a big voter fraud scheme” Creamer added.
Around minute 14 of the video, the undercover cameras switch to filming Cesar Vargas, founder of the Dream Action Coalition. The placement again implies the connection between Vargas and the voter fraud scheme.
“What’s the goal of the overall campaign right? Yeah and for me I totally get it, this is illegal, this is something that can be done” said Vargas in the video.
After the video, Vargas released a statement of his own stating that he has a copy of the exact transcript and that the statements were taken out of context:
“Hey Friends, apparently there is a conspiracy video out there with me in it. Here is some background, “Veritas Project” is the group behind this video. They are a far-right group, the people working in it are political operatives, and all Trump supporters who were interviewing activist on their work confronting elected officials. Some of the people in the video work with DNC which is why they show them more — they left me out:(. Of course, they didn’t expect for me to tell them that we confront both Democrats and Republicans and that we organize for our families not a political party. No surprise, they deleted this and many other parts and they just edited the video to distort the story. Whatever I told this group is what I tell everyone in public: we fight for our family not for a political party. They have a transcript of our conversation to confirm I told them that voting twice was illegal. But I will not respond to FOX News or others fanning the flames but let them have their field day of conspiracies.
PV: But you can do that. You can’t do that under the same name. So he (fake character) wants to devise a way…
CV: Again, you cannot vote twice. Even if you are the same person.”
After the release of these videos, Creamer resigned and Foval was fired for the statements. Creamer also released a statement in his resignation calling the conversations in the video “hypothetical.”
The Clinton campaign stated that Project Veritas “has been known to offer misleading video out of context.” They did, however, acknowledge that regardless of the questionable tactics, some of the content in the videos is troubling. Even if, as the DNC claims, it was never executed. According to the statement, the DNC believed they have addressed what they think was only the proposal/theory of such tactics by releasing the aforementioned members from their staff.
On Monday, October 24, Project Veritas released the third video in their series claiming to connect Hilary Clinton to Creamer in the fraud.
Cori Bratby-Rudd 