Fox News' Gag Order Re: O'Keefe Wiretap Case Pending Federal Indictment

Posted: Thursday, January 28, 2010 | Posted by Chico Brisbane | Labels: , , , ,



As this political espionage case unfolds, the prime mover is James O’Keefe — the young conservative activist with a history for this type of illegal activity. Last year O'Keefe and a female accomplice posed as pimp and prostitute and secretly recorded videotape of conversations between themselves and employees at an ACORN office in Pennsylvania.
State Law prohibits recording or videotaping a person without thier concent. Nevertheless, immediately following O'Keefe's previous undercover calamity at ACORN, Fox News nearly pulled a groin muscle circling the wagons around O'Keefe and his female accomplice. Beck and fellow Fox host Sean Hannity promoted O'Keefe's videos and openly scolded the media for ignoring them.






Now it's Fox News that's doing the ignoring. Now that O'Keefe has graduated from violating state law to violating federal law, Fox is not so quick to circle the wagons this time around. During thier shows last night, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly didn't utter a peep about this up and coming "G. Gordon Liddy" wannbe.

Now to be "Fair & Balanced" - On his radio show today, Fox News host Glenn Beck condemned James O’Keefe's actions and I have to say, he didn't hold back. It just leaves me wondering why Beck wouldn't use his highly rated cable show at Fox News to opine in the same manner that he did on his radio program. I suspect that it wasn't Beck's decision to make.

BECK: If they were doing that — that’s Watergate. Insanely stupid and illegal. … I haven’t heard his side, but you don’t do anything illegal, that’s Watergate territory. You just don’t do that. And besides that I don’t think you go dressed up —I mean it’s a senator. For the love of Pete, it’s a senator.
CO-HOST: First of all, it’s different than an ACORN office. Because you’re talking about a U.S. senator here! [...]

BECK: It’s exactly the same thing I said for the state dinner. You must not allow — the Secret Service must come down on these peoples in the White House like a box of rocks. You don’t do anything to hurt security for the president or for a senator or anybody else. You don’t mess around with it. Ever, ever, ever, ever. … We have enough [evidence] to, I believe, condemn.

Listen here:


Fox reporter Tim Gaughan tried to downplay the news yesterday, saying, “[It's a] very weird story that probably needs a lot of context and a lot of looking into.” I think that when anyone walks into a federal building posing as someone else, particularly posing a public utility worker or some other profession for the purpose of validating their presence, there is not alot of looking into or context required to conclude that there is a news story here.





Regardless of what they hoped to do to or learn about the phone system in Sen. Landrieu's office, these men do not understand the seriousness of what they have already admitted to the FBI. It is against the law to enter a federal building under false pretenses and O'Keefe has already admitted that to the FBI without having ever read Sections 1036 and 1362 of Title 18:


Whoever willfully or maliciously injures or destroys any of the works, property, or material of any radio, telegraph, telephone or cable, line, station, or system, or other means of communication, operated or controlled by the United States, or used or intended to be used for military or civil defense functions of the United States, whether constructed or in process of construction, or willfully or maliciously interferes in any way with the working or use of any such line, or system, or willfully or maliciously obstructs, hinders, or delays the transmission of any communication over any such line, or system, or attempts or conspires to do such an act, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.




If Beck, Hannity, and O'Reilly worked at The Food Channel and hosted cooking shows, that would be one thing. But when you host political cable programs for a cable news network, covering a story about wiretapping the offices of a United States Senator cannot be overlooked. Well.....is suppose it can be overlooked since this is a free country. But please don't get all defensive and stomp your feet when people question the ligitimacy of your network as a reliable source for news and information.



CORRECTION: "But please don't get all defensive and stomp your feet when people discover that you network is not a reliable source for news and information." ANY QUESTIONS?



- Chico Brisbane

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