Scam Artists Accidentally Verify Post’s Reporting on Moore Sexual Abuse

Project Veritas would be a hilariously ridiculous organization if its tactics weren’t so effective on people who don’t know any better. The group is known for lying to interview subjects and deceptively editing video to make it appear that the targets of their right-wing “sting” operations are doing exactly whatever it is conservatives fear they’re doing, from Planned Parenthood and fetal tissue to ACORN and voter fraud.

The organization is run by James O’Keefe, and his crew generally turns out to be the home of the fraudulent activity, lies, and bias that they pretend to uncover in others. (Here’s a short rundown of some of PV’s greatest hits.) Seriously, O’Keefe was convicted in 2010 of using a fake identity to enter a government building. The fraud is coming from inside the house. This latest instance, however, takes things to a whole new level. The Washington Post’s reporting has been instrumental in bringing to light allegations of child molestation about Roy Moore, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Alabama.

However, despite the unprecedented willingness of the public to believe women right now, we’re also facing a highly partisan political climate, in which many people have become convinced that the media is lying to them. So, the Washington Post, which is very much in PV’s crosshairs right now in general, probably seemed like an easy target to O’Keefe: Pay someone to fabricate an allegation against Roy Moore and watch WaPo fall for it, thus proving that the press can’t be relied on to properly vet sources and verify accounts.

He apparently didn’t realize that he’d only serve to prove how false that assumption is. In a WaPo story yesterday, the paper revealed that someone had come forward with a false accusation against Moore, as is the constant worry of people who are more concerned about the welfare of a nearly nonexistent group of men than pretty much every single woman alive.

Not only did the paper’s reporters come to the conclusion that the account was false after thoroughly vetting it (and never coming close to publishing it), but they noticed that the woman they interviewed payed a visit to Project Veritas’ headquarters. After deciding their source’s communications were in bad faith, the Post made the decision to publish the bizarre account of their conversations and what they’d learned so far about her true motivation. In an (attempted) video interview, O’Keefe refused to answer Post reporter Aaron C. Davis’ questions as to whether or not the woman works for Project Veritas. Later, Project Veritas tried to post its own version of the interview, using the term “full video,” but cutting out about half of the video: the part with Davis’ questions and O’Keefe’s complete refusal to answer.

Unabashedly posting a video that’s clearly edited to serve their own ends, while pretending to be crusaders for truth, is Project Veritas in a nutshell, but their efforts, in this case, were even more shameful than usual. The whole thing was an attempt to undermine the credibility of not just the Washington Post, but of women coming forward about sexual assault.

The people at Project Veritas weren’t trying to expose a mistake; they were trying to create one where none existed, in order to discredit the women who came forward about Moore, along with every woman who has or will come forward about harassment and assault. They couldn’t find any liars, so they had to fulfill their own prophecy in an attempt to drag all the honest people down into the mud where nothing matters. It’s a disgusting thing to try to do to the women who came forward, and it fully demonstrates the organization’s commitment to political ideology and party over the actual truth or the public good.

And yet, all they succeeded in doing was showing that the Post properly investigates its sources, which is all the more reason to believe them.

(image: Shutterstock)

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