The conservative blogger Nadia Naffe who filed a harassment complaint against ACORN 'pimp' James O'Keefe has published a new account of an undercover sting operation in which she helped O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart target Rep. Maxine Waters.
Naffe claims she posed as O'Keefe's companion, enabling him to gain access to the bank where Waters' husband works. According to Naffe, James O'Keefe sent her an email describing a loophole that 'gave citizen journalists the same wiretapping authority as law enforcement and the FBI.'
Naffe also now says 'James received a shipment of high-tech recording devices during the trip. His intent was to wiretap the bank.'
Reporting to Breitbart, O'Keefe toured OneUnited bank locations trying to prove they had benefited from TARP bailouts which Rep. Waters supported, according to the post. Naffe also promises further installments that will describe her experience in O'Keefe's "barn" and the aftermath which led her to contact police.
Naffe does not state whether she or O'Keefe actually placed listening devices in the target sites, but she certainly leads her readers to such an implication. Much of Naffe's post is left vague, but if true, it does bring up controversial questions about O'Keefe's assumption he could plant bugs targeting elected officials or their contacts just because he suspects fraud or bribery has taken place.
O'Keefe is said to have told Naffe that California wiretapping statutes didn't apply when collecting "bribery evidence" from banks:
"Congressional Offices/Banks – criminal Exception – 630.5 – Statutes don’t apply for containing evidence reasonably believed to related to extortion, kidnapping, bribery, violence against the person.”
Waters and Naffe apparently started talking over the phone after O'Keefe's arrest in the Mary Landrieu case. Naffe says she came clean about her part in the plot, also apologizing to OneUnited CEO Kevin Cohee.
Says Naffe, "The only thing that kept James and Breitbart from driving a stake through Waters heart was the backlash from a selectively edited video of former USDA employee Shirley Sherrod". This sounds like anything O'Keefe and Breitbart might have found to discredit Waters could have been buried because of the way the information may have been obtained. Many questions remain.